


Once upon a time in Arendelle

by stillslightlynerdy



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:59:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1555994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillslightlynerdy/pseuds/stillslightlynerdy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has a year since the Queen's coronation. She's twenty-two and much to her lack of enthusiasm finds herself hosting another ball. There are diplomats, princes, dukes, and someone far more interesting and far less suitable. A/N: And if it makes you feel any better I don't read a lot of OC either ...  Try it.  [Elsa/OC] F/F and the rest of the fine Arendellian ensemble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The port of Arendelle's eponymous capital, in truth it's only city, was full of ships. There were the fishing boats of the residents, the trade vessels that came regularly during the spring and summer when the water was free of ice …or mostly free of ice. And now there was a small fleet of private vessels that had arrived carrying visitors from afar and not so far. The small harbor was crowded, but just outside the harbor sat one particular ship under current scrutiny.

"Avalonian?" It wasn't really a question. Despite the distance the Queen Elsa of Arendelle could clearly see the Avalonian colors flying atop the ship's mainmast in the early morning light. She turned down Kai's offered telescope. She didn't need any help seeing this ship. "That's big."

"Ship of the line, Your Majesty. Seventy-four guns. The HMS Vigilant." Kai, her butler and confidant answered. "It was spotted by one of our sloops last night … but the Vigilant unfortunately beat our ship here, so we didn't have any warning until she was already in the fjord."

"Big and fast." The queen frowned as she considered the obvious question. "So why? They are rather far from home. Why a ship of the line? Is this a threat?"

They both knew that this vessel was much larger than anything Arendelle had in its Navy. Were it to be here on a less than peaceful mission, any naval battle would be short and very ugly for the little kingdom. Arendelle was peaceful, carefully neutral in the great wars that wracked the Continent. Elsa had to think well into Arendelle's history to find the last time her kingdom had been involved in a hostility. It had been very, very long ago, probably when one of her ancestors named Ulf the Huge and Mighty or something like that, had gone viking – most likely on Avalon's shores, which when she thought about it could have a certain unfortunate irony.

"Perhaps, Your Majesty, said Kai. "As you know, your father resisted Avalon's attempts to forge an exclusive alliance, but now that you sit on the throne."

"Arendelle is led by an inexperienced girl, who can freeze a fjord." Elsa sighed.

"I wouldn't have put it in quite those words, but yes. Then again, perhaps it is just King William of Avalon being … King William of Avalon. However, I would expect whoever is aboard that ship to further push an alliance, and I would expect an offer of marriage. The King has four sons."

"Wonderful." Elsa rolled her eyes. "Good thing we're throwing a party, then." Tomorrow was Elsa's twenty-second birthday, and she was hosting what she feared would become an annual event – a ball to celebrate. And it seemed that given her current marital status holding a ball was something akin to declaring open season on herself. Nobles from far and wide had arrived with expectations and hats in hand. Elsa had met more third and forth sons of monarchs, more Dukes, more Counts and Barons in the last month than she thought there were castles in the world. And so far her only observation was that inbreeding did nobody any favors.

Her resigned sigh turned into a chuckle, "Papa did say that Avalon likes to show off. He just didn't mention that it would be quite this close to our home."

Kai only nodded.

"You know, two can play that game..."

"Your Majesty?"

"We're not completely helpless, Kai, and I would hate for them to get the wrong idea." The queen gestured back out to the large ship. "What do you think, 2000 yards?"

Elsa got a twinkle in her eye that Kai usually associated with her younger sister, Anna the Princess of Arendelle, second in line to the throne and first in line for pranks and mischief. He had hoped the queen would have a good influence on her sister, now that they were reunited after thirteen years of separation. Sadly, rather than Elsa's reserved queenly grace transferring to Anna it seemed more and more the reverse was happening.

"Are you sure that's wise, Your Majesty." He warned.

"I guess I'll find out," she replied with a shrug. She looked up into the sky, squinting as she brought her fondness for geometry to bear, quickly estimating the proper angle and velocity. Then pushing her hands out from her chest, she let go of a short burst of magic.

On the Vigilant a chorus of shouts and alarms rang across the deck, interrupting even the hectic routine of settling into a port. The officers looked to their captain, and at her command called for an end to the row, reassuring the men as best they could, redirecting them back to work with glares and tersely worded orders if reassurance didn't work. The captain herself looked up from from her place on the quarter deck to the gentle snowfall that encompassed her ship and only her ship. Then she looked down at the short, rotund the man at her side Henry Evenrath, Duke of Ledsham, Avalon's new Ambassador to Arendelle. "It looks like the Queen of Arendelle has sent her greetings, Your Grace."

 

* * *

 

Sometime later the next day:

"Are you sure I can't convince you to go," Captain Fitzwilliam of the Vigilant pleaded with her First Lieutenant, Lieutenant Hanson. "Please. If you come I only need to find two others bored out of their skulls to make four for cards."

"You know that isn't happening, Captain." Hanson laughed. "Even if I could, I wouldn't go. Couldn't pay me enough. Not even sure you could order me. I've got no need of hanging around a bunch of lords 'n ladies who all know they're better than me."

Fitzwilliam could think of no satisfactory response to that truth. "Fine then. Fine. See if I come to your aid when your neck's in the noose," she grumbled.

She did not want to attend the Queen of Arendelle's birthday ball either, but she hadn't been given the choice. That walrus of a Duke she had around her neck like an albatross - well, a walrus-sized albatross, with his pasty white skin and propensity for blowing his nose in an awful lace handkerchief – had made it plain she would be attending. And her orders were to follow the Duke's orders, which left her very little room for exerting any privilege as commanding officer of the ship. He had some mad fantasy that her as a woman would make the presence of the Vigilant less intimidating, a thought that Fitzwilliam rejected as both untrue and highly insulting, an insult she would have challenged if the man weren't her superior. Her ship brought down Gallic dogs with the same ferocity as the rest of the Avalonian fleet, better than most and that wasn't even a boast. Her sword was feared as well. Being a woman in the fleet had meant that some felt it necessary to insult her credentials or her competence or breeding. She hadn't killed everyone she had taken down on the field of honor, but those left alive often wished they weren't, she didn't like to settle for only taking a man's pride. Now her reputation was such that it was rare that some drunk or full of himself young Lord would smirk an indignity at her, and when they did they were always quickly pulled away with apologies by their compatriots.

Tonight, however, she was to be paraded at this ball like a trained bear whose teeth had been pulled to render it helpless, all for the benefit of this queen, a woman likely too involved with herself to be interested in anything outside of her arm's reach. Fitzwilliam thought if the queen had any temerity, she'd be queen of a lot more than this one tiny valley. She had not been privileged to read any of the in-depth intelligence on Her Majesty of Arendelle, but she imagined, aside from the ice magic, she was like any of the other Princesses she'd met. Shallow, sheltered, no sense of how the real world worked and therefore vulnerable. Someone who, and the captain winced at the thought, needed a man to protect her, which was after all why they were here.

A cry brought her out of her reverie, and she looked over her shoulder to where a dozen of her crew were wrestling with the boatswain's chair to get Duke Ledsham into the captain's gig. His Grace was completely indisposed to any discomfort or exertion, which made getting him on and off the ship without a gangplank rather difficult.

"Oh!" The Duke yelped as he swung gently down.

Fitzwilliam gritted her teeth to keep from laughing. This was a site she would cherish forever. The man was nothing short of impossible. "Careful there," The captain said to her boatswain loudly enough to be heard below. "We don't want any unnecessary swims today."

"Aye, aye, Captain," came the reply. And the Duke howled yet again.

She stepped back so her chuckles would at least be unseen, until she heard him yelling at the oarsmen waiting to pull him down into the boat. Fitzwilliam looked over the side where Ledsham hung turning slowly in the breeze.

"Captain, are you coming?" he demanded.

"Yes, Your Grace. I'll be right down." After an exchange of salutes with the boatswain, she gave her dress hat a push to make sure it was firmly on her head, and she climbed over the rail, deftly descending the Jacob's ladder to the waiting boat. Then she helped the oarsmen guide their prize down. She had to duck the Duke's kicking feet, but finally he was aboard, and they pushed off toward the docks.

As soon as he had caught his breath the Duke began his lecture. This was an important occasion. Avalon's interests were vital. It might be only a ball, but often the tone of an entire negotiation could be determined in a social setting. And of course since they had to convince the queen that Avalon and its citizens were refined and upstanding, and that Avalon was the center of culture and civilization, she must be on her best behavior. The captain wanted nothing more than to tell him that she was going to take her unrefined self to the local pub, so as not to distress any royalty with her uncouth presence. Hell, she'd even stay on the gig if it meant getting out of this ball. However, she supposed in the end drinking someone else's champagne and watching the clock tick was a small price to pay for the privilege of commanding the Vigilant. That didn't change the fact though, she thought as she brushed off her dress coat and reseated her hat for the carriage ride to the castle, that she would much rather go toe to toe the whole Gallic navy.

* * *

 

 

"How long do we need to stay here, Elsa? You know we could move around a little. A short walk – maybe over there," Princess Anna gestured to where Kristof was standing very near the chocolate fondue.

Elsa and her sister were up on the small dais at the end of the ballroom formally receiving the guests as they came in. Elsa liked that the step up put a barrier between her and the rest of her birthday well-wishers. It made them keep a little distance, and that distance made the whole greeting process bearable. Her sister was not taking the same comfort though. Kristof, who looked quite the part of a gentleman this evening, had declined to stand with them, which meant that Anna was chomping at the bit to go dance with him and ravage the dessert table. The queen, never looking away from expanse of the room before her, whispered to her sister. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want to."

"But then you're going to say I ran out on you and left you at the mercy of some strange prince, aren't you?"

"I absolutely will." The queen's expression returned to a serene half smile.

Anna huffed,"I'm not sure I'm all that helpful standing here. I mean suppose I'm really the problem. What if I'm actually attracting them. OK, I know I'm probably not, I mean I know you are the queen, and they're here for the queen, well to see the queen, not like take the queen. OK, who are we kidding they probably want to take the queen, and I'm only the princess. But you don't know - maybe they think it's safer to come talk to you if I'm here. That could be what's happening. I could be a Prince magnet, and I don't see how that would be helping you."

Elsa repressed a laugh at 'Prince magnet.' Her sister was not getting off that easily. "Anna, you're great at providing conversation. Think of yourself as the social outreach royal for the evening. "

"Oh come on. It's not like you don't know how to talk about things. I mean you're quite the conversationalist, well better anyway. You really have improved in the last year, although OK, I might not be the most unbiased of people, but you're out of your room, and that's something. And you talk to – dozens of people during the week. Well, a dozen, maybe two. And, and wait – this is important, you do so many more interesting things than I do, you know … taxes, and trade agreements, and farm reports, and other fun stuff. And, and you read more, which means you have lots and lots of important and interesting things you can talk about, you know compared to me. So I'm not sure you need me anymore. I mean the right here, right now, kinda anymore. You could so handle the conversation."

The queen finally glanced over at her little sister, "Anna, I will always need you, but nice try."

The silence settled.

Anna shifted and tugged at her ballgown. She looked over at her sister, who still held an unfocused gaze over the room as if it were a perfectly normal comfortable thing to do for hours at a time.

The silence stretched on.

Anna finally broke down,"OK, OK, you made your point."

Elsa's smile grew with her victory.

"I'll stay for a while longer. Just a little though, I really want to dance."

"I know." Elsa gave her sister a wink before her attention was caught by a small commotion around the entrance to the ballroom. "Oh look, here's Avalon." She momentarily pursed her lips in annoyance as the delegation came through the large double doors. Then she whispered, "Just stay for this one more. Then you can go."

"Really?" Anna's eyes lit up. "Then I can go? Well, let's get this show on the road then."

The party from Avalon bowed and a remarkably short squat man stepped forward, a lace handkerchief dangling from his sleeve. "Greetings Your Majesty, Your Highness," he said with another bow, "I am Duke Ledsham, representative of His Majesty William V of Avalon, and this is …."

"Your cabin boy," Anna jumped right in giving the captain a grin as she hopped down from the dais.

With her eyes wide in a moment of confusion, the captain looked from the Duke to the Princess and back. "No, actually I'm ..."

"Oh, I know, I know, one of those officer children." Anna interrupted again. "What is it? I know the name, I know the name. I had a tutor who was positively gaga over Avalonian navy stuff. You know," Anna lowered the pitch of her voice, no doubt to imitate the tutor and said, "'Avalonian navy, finest navy in the world.' Aaaand, it's coming to me …. ahhhh …. Midshipmen … Midshipman? You're a Midship man, but I mean not really a man, you're what? Fourteen? Probably not even. You don't even have the trace of a whisker, and your voice certainly hasn't changed. You're cute though. Tell me is it really as hard as they ..."

As rude as it was to interrupt royalty, Fitzwilliam decided that this had gone on long enough. And if the Princess pinched her cheek again she was likely to get her fingers smacked.

"If her Highness will permit," she said using a voice more suited to the quarterdeck than a ballroom. "I am Captain Fitzwilliam of the Vigilant. I am 29. And not to disappoint, but I both unlikely to grow a beard or to have my voice change." The captain removed her hat with a sweep, and bowed again, before she said something she might regret.

Elsa understood first, and her hand flew to her mouth to try to suppress her laugh. It came out as a rather unqueenly snort followed by a breathy, "I am so sorry, Captain. My sister ..."

"What, what? What did I do now?" Anna stepped away as her sister elbowed her in the ribs.

"Captain Fitzwilliam is a woman, Anna."

"Ooooooh." She blushed, looked back to the captain, waved, and said in a high pitched voice. "Hi. I'm so sorry."

"It was nothing, ma'am," the captain said quickly. "It happens all the time." Which was a lie. It had never happened before, but she could think of nothing else remotely appropriate. In civilized parts of the world, or those uncivilized parts where she and the Vigilant patrolled, she was well known. However, Arendelle was apparently neither of those.

"It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Captain Fitzwilliam," the queen said mercifully ending the awkward exchange. "I hope you enjoy your stay in Arendelle."

Fitzwilliam nodded in what she hoped looked like agreement, bowed again and withdrew leaving the Ambassador to conduct whatever god forsaken conversation he was intent on having. She wondered if they had whiskey here or good rum. She wanted, no needed, a stiff drink.

The party was now in full swing, and the room was packed. Elsa made her apologies to the party of the Prince from Brunswick, or Luneburg … or …. her head spun sorting out all the principalities of Germany, and tried to disappear before the next minor prince found her. Heading for a pair of curtains she knew covered the doors to a balcony, she almost ran headlong into her butler.

"Your Majesty?" he said. "Is there something you need?"

"Fifteen minutes, Kai." Elsa saw the sigh rather than heard it in the noisy ballroom. "Ten …. I need ten, just a moment alone. I can't breathe in here," she pleaded.

The butler sighed again, nodded and beckoned two guards over to cover her exit. "Not too long, Your Majesty. It's your ..."

"I know, it's my party," she agreed feebly. "And if Anna asks ..."

"I will tell her that you will return in ten minutes."

Elsa mouthed a 'thank you' and slipped through the curtain and through the open balcony doors. Shutting them gently behind her, she exhaled a deep breath. Out here the party was a bearable rumble, not much louder than the sound of the fjord on the rocks below. A summer breeze wafted gently through, bringing the welcome scent of fresh air and sea. The sky was the hazy twilight that passed for night this far into summer, and long shadows stretched across the landscape in front of her. With her gloved hands tucked close to her body, she slowly walked to the balcony rail.

The gloves were not part of her usual attire, not any longer, but at such a large gathering, with so many people whom she didn't know but who would all want to speak with her, both she and Kai had agreed that discretion was the better part of valor. Skewering the visiting raft of diplomats and suitors on giant icicles would not help her reputation as the "evil Snow Queen," nor would it ensure peaceful relations with neighboring countries. And still, for all that they were her idea, the gloves chafed, her fingers tingled and she felt the magic building up inside her. Her old mantra, "conceal, don't feel" danced through her consciousness, but she pushed it aside. 'Not feeling' was not an option. Not only did it not work, it made things worse, and Arendelle did not need another untimely winter.

So she tugged off her gloves, laying them carefully on the rail beside her. Then closing her eyes to savor the moment she gestured with her left hand. A spray of frost flew from her fingertips. Her eyes opened, her smile broadened, and she did the same with her right. She continued with the flurries, making them larger and larger, gradually bringing them together into cohesive, unnaturally large snowflakes. The crystalline structures shot up from her hands and then floated down into the sea. This display was such a small thing, showing more control than power, but it brought the needed relief. To finish she brought both hands together in a circle and thrust them upwards, leaning back to revel in the softly falling snow. It was wonderfully cool. Had it really been so hot in the ballroom? She would have to discretely take care of that when she went back.

"That's beautiful – magnificent ..."

Elsa jumped and squeaked as a figure emerged from the shadows on her left.

"Really exquisite. I had heard … heard rumors, but I had no idea it would be so ... so beautiful. Your Majesty," the speaker stopped a few feet from her and bowed. "I am sorry if I startled you."

Elsa looked at the intruder from head to toe. It was that captain from earlier, the one from Avalon. The woman. Captain Fitzwilliam. "I didn't realize there was anyone out here."

"I was taking a break, from the noise of the party, Your Majesty, and thought to enjoy the view of the harbor."

"As was I," Elsa replied still a little breathless, "taking a break."

"If Your Majesty wishes to be alone." The woman bowed again and reached for the door to return to the party.

"No. No. I intruded on your peace. And besides," the queen looked slightly rueful, "I can not stay away long. I will be … missed." She said the last word with more resignation than she intended. She knew her duty, and she did not resent her place in the world. It was after all what she had been born to do. But dozens of men hounding her at every turn, large gatherings at all really, were not the sort of activity her solitary upbringing had prepared her to enjoy.

"As you wish, Your Majesty." The captain bowed again and turned her gaze back to the fjord, taking care not to turn her back on the Queen of Arendelle, but also completely ignoring her.

Elsa was surprised. She almost felt dismissed. All night people had been watching her, following her, coming over and talking to her about nothing, or even worse about something she had no interest in. This lack of attention from the captain was new, and not, she thought with a bit of surprise, entirely pleasing the longer it went on. This woman had an interesting combination of self-assurance and calm that goaded Elsa into wanting to see if she could shake either of them.

"I want to apologize for my sister." Elsa said, finally breaking the silence.

The captain seemed to pull herself from far away. She wheeled, bowing yet again, and said with a deceptively blank expression. "Really, there is no need."

"She gets carried away, and she's not very observant."

"Really – no – need," Fitzwilliam allowed again, her tone still even, but her jaw clenching ever so slightly.

This time when the silence fell they both looked away. The captain's eyes immediately went back out to the harbor. Elsa's however, returned to take a moment and study the woman beside her. She was tall, tall and broad shouldered. That should have been Anna's clue, she thought. No prepubescent boy was that size. Her skin was not the pale white Elsa associated with life in a castle, but a browner shade that showed her time in the sun. Her hair was a dark brown, again showing the effects of the sun as it was a lighter on the top and around the edges and darker underneath, and her eyes were possibly brown or maybe green. It was difficult to tell at this angle. The uniform of an Avalonian naval officer was as dashing as she had heard, and this captain did it justice, from her shiny black boots, gleaming white breeches, neckcloth and waistcoat, to her elegantly embroidered dark blue coat. Her sword hung in a brass scabbard at her side. It gleamed in the twilight. Elsa was sure someone had spent some hours polishing it. The captain stood very straight and erect, but without any obvious effort at it. She stood, Elsa though with a private grin, very much like she had been taught to stand, with supreme confidence – whether she was feeling it or not and that made her wonder if the captain was really as unflappable as she seemed.

"Are there many?" the queen asked.

"Your Majesty?" Again the captain pulled her eyes back from their distant stare. "Many what?"

"Women … women in Avalon's navy?"

The captain shook her head, "No. A few. Some junior officers now, and a larger crop of Midshipmen. And one … well, one of command rank."

"So you broke the mold." Elsa tried a smile.

"I broke something," the captain said dryly, a flicker of amusement lighting her eyes. "But as Your Majesty knows, one cannot let ones gender interfere with ones true calling," her eyes moved again from Elsa's but this time only for a moment, looking out to the harbor and then back. "The sea suits me."

The silence fell again, however, this time the captain did not look away but held her eyes on Elsa's. Not uncomfortably, but in a manner that told the queen the option of conversing or not was still entirely up to her.

"Your boat?" Elsa asked, gesturing out to her vessel, certain that the captain would see that for the idle conversation it was.

"My ship, ma'am." The captain replied wondering if the queen was teasing her; surely she knew what a naval vessel was called.

"Oh, forgive me," she said, her smile broadening, "your ship. The enormous one with, what is it, seventy-four cannons pointed at my castle?"

Fitzwilliam's tone lightened although she still looked very serious. "I'm afraid that not all the guns would be pointing here at one time, ma'am. I'd have to come about to bring the other twenty-eight on the far gun-deck to bear. And we would need to be somewhat closer for maximum effect, which might turn rather chilling for us all, wouldn't you say?"

"That's a good assumption, Captain." Elsa affected her own innocent expression. "So your intentions are entirely peaceful."

"Entirely, Your Majesty. For if they were not, we would have acted on them well before you even knew we were here, and you would be standing in the aftermath."

One carefully sculpted eyebrow shot up, and Elsa said. "Indeed, would I? It seems you are rather cocky, Captain."

"No, Your Majesty," Fitzwilliam said with a straight face, "I am very good. I am very good in a navy of the best."

Elsa rolled her eyes at the boast, but in truth she was enjoying the conversation. Compared to others she had been having this evening it was refreshingly frank. She was also enjoying that Captain Fitzwilliam was not overawed with royalty. There was no fawning, no forced conversation, in fact when she turned her eyes away, the captain returned to staring out to sea with the same implacable manner she had exhibited since admiring her earlier magic display. Elsa was here to take a break, and it appeared that this woman had no intention of doing anything to interfere with that. It was silence, but it was a companionable silence, a rarity in Elsa's life. Not the lonely silence of her room or the council chambers late at night, no it was the sort of silence she might have shared with … Anna … if her sister were ever silent.

Then there was a knock on the glass. It was Kai. "Damn," the queen muttered. When she looked back she realized the captain was now staring at her. "What, surely you've heard the word before? Isn't there something about sailors and swearing."

The queen was sure she saw the barest hint of a smile play on her lips when the captain answered. "Yes, ma'am, indeed. There is, however as I recall, very little about about queens and swearing."

"They just don't do it in your company," Elsa retorted. She looked back toward the ballroom and sighed. It was where she was supposed to be. It was her duty, and duty was not always pleasant. Still these last few minutes had been the most enjoyable moments, aside from teasing her sister, that she had experienced all night.

"Captain, do you dance?"

"Da ... dance … not, not usually …" The personal question caught the captain quite by surprise, and for the first time she sputtered, unsure of her words, "I mean, men, not my ... um ... two swords tend to get tangled up together and that's a terrible mess, and tripping, and there aren't many women who ..." the queen cut off her stream of consciousness ramble.

"Can you dance?"

"I have had lessons ..." the captain said very slowly.

"Good. Then please, dance with me."

The captain wrinkled her brow in confusion as she took in what had just been said. She opened and closed her mouth several times in aborted sentences before she finally choked out,"Your Majesty, you do me a great honor but are you sure ..."

Elsa was pleased with herself for finally getting a reaction from the stoic captain."I am the queen. It is my birthday. And there are two dozen persistent prospective suitors in there, all climbing over each other to monopolize my time with exclamations about my beauty and Arendelle's great bounty. Something that you mercifully have avoided ..."

The captain felt a flush rising from her tall boots right up through her cheeks. "I'm sorry, of course Her Majesty is breath taking …."

Elsa held up her hand. "Captain Fitzwilliam." The captain seemed surprised she remembered her name.

"Captain Fitzwilliam, the Queen of Arendelle has just asked you to dance. Your answer?"

Fitzwilliam glanced down at her well polished boots. Queen Elsa was enjoying her discomfort far too much. "Yes, of course. I am always Your Majesty's servant."

Elsa looked back to the rail, and gave her dance partner a gentle tap. "Then if you would get my gloves, you may escort me in."

The queen's return to the ballroom did not go unmarked. Fitzwilliam wondered if a prearranged signal had gone off, the way a host of people started to swarm around them. Still the queen appeared not to even notice. Instead she tightened her grip on Fitzwilliam's arm and whispered in her ear, "Head straight for the dance floor." And the captain did as she was bid, the floor clearing before them.

Elsa didn't relax until they were safely away from the press. The orchestra began the opening strains of a waltz. She draped her left arm on the captain's shoulder as she felt Fitzwilliam guiding her into position with a strong right hand just below her shoulder blade, pulling her closer.

"I did worn you I'm not in good practice, Your Majesty" the captain whispered nervously as they began to move on the floor. Her heart then skipped a few beats when the queen replied,"That's fine, Captain. I just learned about two weeks ago."

The captain was a strong lead, moving the queen firmly. She was a little stiff, very aware of where she was, and who was with her, but she was clearly a practiced lead. Elsa, meanwhile, was trying to keep her chin up and eyes off their feet. They managed a respectable turn or two around the dance floor. No one tripped; no one fell; no toes were trod upon. Which reminded the queen ...

"Over there," she gestured with her eyes to where her sister was dancing. "Can you get over there to my sister?"

"Of course, your Majesty."

Fitzwilliam cut a path directly to where Anna was twirling in the arms of Kristoph, trusting on either her momentum or the queen's presence to clear the floor before them.

"Anna," the queen said in sotto voce, "Anna."

"Huh. Oh, hi. Elsa … Queen … Your Majesty."

"Please, come stand with me after this dance, Anna."

"Sure." Anna looked over at Fitzwilliam and winked. "But it looks like you already called out the navy. It could get crowded. I wouldn't want to cramp your style or anything."

Elsa shot her eyes skyward, shook her head. "Excuse my sister … again."

"You know, I heard that, right?"

Elsa merely laughed as they moved away, but Fitzwilliam felt the blush begin anew. And despite the cool touch of the queen's hands, this time it lasted until the dance was over. She had no idea why the queen had chosen her. If someone had told her she was to be squiring Elsa of Arendelle on the dance floor, well she wouldn't have even given it enough credibility to call it mad. But here she was dancing with one of the most eligible … and now she would add beautiful … royals in the world. She knew that there were a host of men staring at her right now cursing her and her impudence. That thought pleased her, but it didn't explain the strange unsettled feeling she had in her stomach.

After the dance the royal party, this time with Kristof and the captain in tow, all retired to the side of the ballroom nearest the dessert table. Captain Fitzwilliam having delivered her charge safely off the floor, bowed deeply yet again, and begged the Queen's leave. Elsa was in the middle of replying that she was not inclined to give it when the captain felt a pull at her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" came a heavily accented voice. When Fitzwilliam turned she found that she was staring into the eyes of a Gallic gentleman, minor nobility by his attire.

"Excuse me," Fitzwilliam said through tight lips, "I'm not sure we've met."

"That is only because you do not pay attention." His index finger poked into her chest. "I am the Baron Henri D'Adnet, third cousin to the King himself."

Fitzwilliam still was not sure she knew the gentleman, but it was becoming clear he knew her.

"And you are Captain Fitzwilliam, your reputation I know." He sneered as he looked her over. "You enjoy to cause the scandal. You disgrace Queen Elsa, Arendelle, and your Avalon, who would of course allow a dog such as yourself to be amongst the civilized people."

Fitzwilliam felt her temper rising. This would probably be a good time to excuse herself. She stepped back trying to move the annoying Baron away from the queen before she let him know exactly what she 'enjoyed' to do, preferably to wipe that obnoxious look off his face, but it was the queen who answered next.

"She was dancing with me, Henri." The queen said, a picture of studied calm. "And now she's talking to me."

"Your Majesty, I would not have your reputation sullied by this ..."

"Take care, Your Excellency." Fitzwilliam growled. At some point during the Baron's tirade she had removed her own leather glove and now she tapped it on the palm of her hand for emphasis.

Elsa blanched. The threat of a challenge on the field of honor was unmistakeable. This was exactly the sort of international incident she was not going to have here. "Captain Fitzwilliam," she said sharply. "Your Excellency. Need I remind you that this is a festive occasion? A party. My party." She looked between them, hoping the silent threat was understood.

"Of course," The captain answered first, stammering, looking from Elsa to the floor and back, the heat of her anger immediately chilling into the dread of embarrassment. Her mind went blank except for a loud internal voice shouting , 'You idiot, this was the very thing you were not supposed to do.' But truthfully it wasn't the Duke's concerns that mortified her. It was the look on the queen's face, her annoyance and disappointment were clear. "My apologies - I - I must withdraw." Fitzwilliam turned and moved as rapidly as she could without running toward the doors, aware of every person staring at her abrupt exit. The crowd moved quickly out of her way to avoid being mowed over, and Elsa watched her retreat, right until the door closed behind the captain, wondering to the end what she might possibly say to stop her. When she looked back Baron Henri had settled himself next to her, a smug satisfied curl to his lip.

"Leave me," she snapped to the young noble.

"Pardon?" he asked surprised.

"I said, leave me. Leave the room. In fact, you may leave Arendelle." Elsa's eyes narrowed dangerously. She knew the temperature was dropping in the room and a few stray snowflakes began to fall, but she really didn't care. This man needed to be gone.

The Baron stepped back in alarm, turned, and muttering to himself, made his own much slower path to the exit, collecting his entourage as he left.

The brief snow flurry ended. The temperature remained at a cool but not cold. The ball continued, and the queen managed to avoid another dance. Then after what she decided was a decent interval, Elsa gave her sister a small smile. "I think I'm … I'm tired. Do you mind?"

"No, no. I'll keep the party candles burning at both ends … or whatever," Anna gave her sister a big hug. "Don't worry. Go … cool down." Anna winked.

"You did not just say that," Elsa groaned at her sister's attempt to improve her mood.

"Of course I did. I'm the conversationalist, remember?"


	2. Chapter 2

The captain stood on the gently rolling quarterdeck a mug of strong black tea gripped in her hand. The sun had never dipped below the horizon, and she knew this because she had seen its journey in its entirely. Her head pounded like someone was tightening a band of iron around it, her eyes squinted against the brightening sun, and her stomach rumbled ominously rebelling against the three cups of tea she had consumed already.

"Morning, Captain," Lieutenant Smythe said touching his hat. The captain nodded affirmatively and tried another sip of tea. "Good luck, the berth opening up."

"Indeed," Fitzwilliam replied, but she wondered if it was all that lucky. They were moving into a berth at the far dock. Apparently that wretched Baron had been tossed out of Arendelle last night, so there was now enough room for the Vigilant. She would have gloated except for her fear that they would be next. Bloody hell, she thought, and then there was the Duke – it was going to be a long day.

After she had left the ball she had headed to the local tavern to try to forget the fiasco that had just occurred. Some time later she had headed to another tavern further in town, but she only knew this from reports and very vague recollections. Fortunately it was then that Hanson found her. He reassured her that all of her clothing had been intact and more importantly on, and the charming young barmaid she had been cuddled up with was definitely of age. Hanson had gotten her back on the ship; she had managed to get herself cleaned up and in a fresh uniform just as the watch changed. Thank God, it had been Hanson, for if it had been a more junior officer she would have felt obliged to run on her sword like Brutus. Not that a quick end to it all wasn't still a temptation.

Familiar shouts rang out around her as lines were cast and tied. Hanson came over and gave her a far too cheerful grin. "We're coming in fine, Captain. It'll only be a couple of minutes before we all tied up safe and sound." He looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot. "The Duke's already on the dock hopping around like something's in his britches."

"Bloody hell," she said aloud this time.

"You want to tell me what's up, then Captain?"

"You don't know." Hanson shook his head, no. "Well that's a small reassurance." She beckoned him closer. "You know that idiot Gaul who sailed out last night, the Baron."

"Yeah, I heard he was involved in a row at the ball. Some fool challenged him, and they both were sent packing."

"Well, it was a fool but they both weren't sent away. One skulked out and spent the rest of the night trying to forget that she was a fool."

"Oh," Hanson did the math in his head. "Oh!" He winced the second time.

"I didn't say anything about it last night?"

Hanson hesitated. "Not about dueling, you didn't."

Fitzwilliam felt her stomach lurch."Oh God, what did I say?"

"Well," Hanson cleared his throat, "You seemed to be rather taken with the queen. And apparently she has eyes the color of the water off Bermuda, 'not the shallows, mind you," he said, clearly imitating her "'but after that first first drop off – just when the water's clearest and the white sand is still underneath.' You were adamant that the depth was between thirty feet to 8 fathoms."

"Bloody hell." Fitzwilliam clutched the mug in her left as she buried her face in her right hand.

"It was almost poetic, I mean from coming you. I actually think I understand the difference between palatinate and Persian blue, now. But, you were discrete. You weren't singing about it or anything."

"Bloody hell – I didn't actually sing did I?"

"No, young Brandy said you were a perfect gentleman all evening."

"Ah, well good that you got me out of there before she got a surprise."

"Didn't strike me that she would've minded it too much, Captain." Hanson gave her a smug grin.

There was a final bump as the ship settled into the dock. Then there was the scrape of the gangplank being lowered. She found herself praying that God, or whoever was presiding over this mess, gave her enough restraint and patience.

"Captain Fitzwilliam!"

She did not know how the Duke managed to have a voice both shrill and booming, but there it was ringing loud and clear.

Captain Fitzwilliam!"

She slowly stood and walked to the ladder to the main deck like she was walking to the guillotine. "Here, Your Grace."

Ledsham stomped over to the ladder and gestured below deck. "I need to speak with you privately. Now!"

The door to her cabin had just shut when the Duke began his tirade. Fitzwilliam found herself most grateful for that one courtesy.

"You and your clumsy lack of manners might have ruined our chances at this alliance. You challenged someone to a duel! Here? Now?" He started at full volume in the tiny cabin. Fitzwilliam's head rang, and she winced.

"I am sorry. It was a mistake."

"In FRONT of her Majesty!" The Duke managed to find room to move even closer, his index finger in her face.

"I apologize, Your Grace. It was wrong. I was wrong. It will not happen again."

The Duke kept on coming, pushing her further back into the small cabin. "It is not me you will apologize to. You will apologize to the queen. You will get down on your knees and beg her forgiveness. You will grovel. You will do whatever it takes for our negotiations to proceed with her favor. And you will do it now!"

"Of course, Your Grace. I ..."

The Duke suddenly reached across his chest and struck her with a stinging backhand to the face. "You forget who you are Captain," he spat. "I speak with the authority of the King on a matter that is of great importance to him. And if you jeopardize my mission here I will make sure that no matter who your patron is, no matter what alliances you have made at court, that you are disowned, court-martial-ed, whipped like the filthy dog you are, and thrown in prison to spend the rest of your miserable life there."

Fitzwilliam's head jerked back, her eyes flashing in anger. But she stuffed her fury with a grim nod of her head. "I understand, Your Grace. I will apologize to the queen." She pulled herself up into attention, she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead like a midshipman being called out, and focused on breathing. "I will not jeopardize this mission. Of course, I understand its importance to Avalon. I will do whatever is necessary to make amends for my poor behavior." It was only after he left that she slammed her fist full on into the bulkhead.

* * *

Fitzwilliam stood in the antechamber to the queen's public reception rooms trying not to pace. Pacing was undignified. Unfortunately so was sleeping up against the wall, which was what she feared might happen if she didn't pace.

"Is it possible for someone else to help you, Captain," Kai said politely. "I am not sure the queen is receiving visitors immediately."

"I understand." The captain said glancing at the gold pocket watch in her hand and then returning it to her waistcoat. "I'll wait."

"Would you care to take a seat? It could be some time."

"No, thank you. I'll just wait."

He walked away, and she resumed her ruminations on the virtue of patience while pulling her pocket watch out to look again at the time. When she heard footsteps she thought it was probably the servant returning with more bad news, but it wasn't.

"We have the benches for a reason, you know."

"Thank you, but I'm … Your Highness." Fitzwilliam stopped in surprise mid-turn as she realized it was the princess.

"Hi," she waved. "So you're not going to sit down?"

"No thank you, Your Highness."

"Why not?"

That was not the response the Captain expected, and it took her a moment to come with a plausible response other than, 'Because I might start snoring.'

"I don't … I don't want my breeches to wrinkle."

The princess looked at her and nodded disbelievingly. "OK." The she continued, "Are you hungry, I can get something from the kitchens? I'm having lunch later with Elsa and some … I don't know ... I can't keep track of them anymore, and I don't think she can either … but I'm there to run interference, so it probably doesn't matter."

The captain felt like every time the princess spoke some dark underbelly of Arendellian society was exposed or at the very least a rather inappropriate level of detail about the royal family. It was disconcerting and left her not quite sure what to respond with. "Indeed."

"Oh, great!" Anna replied jauntily and before Fitzwilliam could correct herself, she popped off. Popped in an almost literal sense as the princess walked with a bounce in her step and more joy than anyone had a decent right to.

Fitzwilliam was surprised again when a short time later, she returned carrying a tray piled with an assortment of food. She had never seen a princess serving, and so confused, and attempting to be helpful and gallant, she rushed over to take the burden from her, which of course Anna didn't expect so she was thrown off balance. This led to a rather peculiar dance, a sort of tango with foodstuffs where the captain tried to balance the tray and the princess without dropping either. At last she got the tray on the bench without getting anything on herself or Her Highness.

"Thanks," the princess breathed. "So I didn't know what you'd want, but I brought a little of everything I saw. Well everything that would fit and wouldn't spill, although we had a close one there didn't we?" She gestured down at the tray, "Those rolls are filled with strawberry, they're great, but you might want to watch how you eat them." She gestured at a dim pink blotch that was centered right at her bust-line.

Fitzwilliam forced her eyes up. "Yes, your Highness. Um, thank you. This is far too kind."

"Well, you looked hungry."

"I'm not sure that I ..." but her effort to politely declined was sabotaged by her stomach growling loudly at the smell of the food.

"See, right on time." The princess pointed at the mug, "That's a small beer there."

"That's probably not a good idea ..." Fitzwilliam's protestations became mumbles as Anna stuck half a sandwich in her mouth.

Fitzwilliam chewed and then swallowed and then reached quickly for the beer. "What ..." she asked once she had taken a long drink, "what was that?"

"Pickled herring and lumpfish roe. You don't like it?"

"No, no it's fine. It was just a little unexpected -"

"Who doesn't eat fish for breakfast?" Anna asked incredulously. "Here, so try the roll," she picked up one of the strawberry buns she had warned about and thrust it at the captain. All Fitzwilliam could see was a large mass of gooey red jam squirting out and heading right for her white shirt. Quickly ducking and twisting her head she managed to get her mouth over that end of the roll covering the blob before it blobbed and bit off almost a third of the roll.

"Wow, that's impressive," the princess said with real admiration in her voice, "I've never managed to get quite that much in my mouth at once. I've tried. But you're a champ."

"S'ank yua" she mumbled grabbing a napkin off the tray and bringing it up to her lips. "Tasty," she said between gulps.

"More?" Anna asked, shoving the bun back at her.

"No, no ... I'm fine. That was wonderful." Fitzwilliam backed up before more dangerous leaking food could be waved at her uniform. They both looked down to where Anna brandished the bun like a weapon, and in a moment they were both laughing. Anna started first, and her laugh was loud and infectious, the captain just chuckled quietly.

"So why are you here?"

"To see the queen, Your Highness."

"Yes, I figured that. I mean you're here, and she's there, and you're waiting …. but I just wondered why?" Anna finished the question with an interesting overly innocent inflection.

Fitzwilliam considered her response, but the fact was that all hope of retaining her dignity today was long shredded. "I need to apologize."

"Why?"

Hesitation moved to disbelief. "For last night, for my behavior last night."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Anna said casually. "It was nothing."

"Begging Your Highness' pardon, it was not 'nothing'. It was a serious breech of manners, and I need to make amends."

"You can make all the amends you want," Anna chuckled. "But really it wasn't 'a thing.'" A pause. "She likes you, I think."

"What? Your Highness?" Fitzwilliam blinked and tried to follow the train of thought that led them here.

"She only danced with one person last night, and it was you. She seemed upset when you left. And while I still can't read her all the time she seemed … relaxed with you."

"I'm not sure what you mean." Fitzwilliam could see the swift stampede of inappropriateness thundering toward her, but she was powerless to stop it.

"My sister isn't good with people."

"Excuse me?" Fitzwilliam recollected the poised, confident woman she had met the night earlier.

"Sure, she looks all confident and queenly, but she's not. I mean she's queenly, and she's confident about queenly things and all, Mama and Papa saw to that, but she doesn't understand people like she understands laws and rules and how to get dressed and stuff. She never got to be around people, just books. I mean I was stuck, in here too, but I could go out if I wanted and you know, talk to people and see stuff outside … and break things." Anna gestured dramatically. "She was just stuck. I don't think she got much beyond the library. I wouldn't see her for days, except maybe at dinner … waaaaay over on the other side of the table. She was like this ghost I would hear about, but hardly see. We never talked. It was always, 'Elsa's too busy to play. Elsa's tired. Elsa has lessons. You know your sister is going to be Queen, and if you want to help her you need to … blah, blah, blah.' They meant well, but they couldn't have gotten it wronger if they tried."

Fitzwilliam tried to piece together the last coherent thing she understood. "The King and Queen?"

"Yeah, our parents. They kept us apart."

Against her better judgment she asked,"But why?"

"They were afraid that Elsa might kill me." Anna rolled her eyes.

"Oh." Fitzwilliam frowned, puzzled. "But you're younger. Her succession was assured, wasn't it?"

Now it was Anna's turn to be surprised. "Oh, no, no, no, no, not that kind of killed." She waved her hands and sputtered as if she had never thought of it that way. Then she laughed, and Fitzwilliam decided against asserting that there was really only one kind of dead. "By accident. With her magic." Anna waved her hands in the air in imitation of her sister's ice magic. "Something happened when I was little, and our parents thought the only safe solution was to keep us separated until she could control her powers, which unfortunately turned out to be something she had to be around people to figure out. And since they made her keep it a secret, I didn't know until she like froze the whole city, and I had to find her, and we both almost died … and well it took us a bit to forgive them for that. Still working on it, if you know what I mean. But I think she could use a friend." Anna took a breath and stepped closer to the captain, as if her next words were the crux of the whole issue. "I'm her friend, but I'm also her sister. Some one different, a different friend, would probably be …"

The princess was interrupted as an older woman stuck her head through the archway and said, "Ma'am, it's near time. You should probably go and change for lunch."

Anna nodded and waved her off, and then grabbed the captain's hand. "This is silly. You've been waiting long enough."

"Your Highness, I don't think ..."

But Anna was stronger than Fitzwilliam had anticipated, and she had the advantage of surprise, so the captain found herself pulled through the double doors into the meeting room.

"Hey Elsa, look who came to visit." Anna announced their arrival. The room was sizable and at one end Fitzwilliam imagined there was a throne, but right in front of her was a large oval conference table with a half dozen serious looking gentlemen around it and the queen at the head. The queen was dressed in something very different from what she had worn the evening before. She did not have anything on her head, her hair was down, which wasn't itself entirely odd, but her bare shoulders were … different. And the dress sparkled as if it were made of ice? All the men stood as the princess came in. They all stared as well, but Fitzwilliam could feel the eyes boring into her. She, meanwhile, was trying not to stare at the dress or what it covered or didn't.

This was not going as the captain had planned.

"Anna … I'm busy." The queen said with a touch of exasperation, before she realized who was being pulled in the princess' wake. "Oh, hello, Captain Fitzwilliam, it's a pleasure to see you again."

The captain took a moment to decide if she had been invited into the presence, decided that she was fine where she was, and then bowed formally. "Your Majesty." She started in a contrite a tone as she could manage under the circumstances. "I wanted to apologize for my inappropriate behavior last night. I hope that I might be forgiven."

Elsa shrugged, and beckoned her forward. "Of course. It wasn't really you who caused the problem." She gestured that the ministers might sit as Anna wondered over to her side. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Fitzwilliam realized that Anna must have been right. It wasn't, what did she call it, 'a thing?' The queen didn't even consider it important enough to warrant a personal apology, which mean now the captain either confessed that she took up her time with something insignificant and self-absorbed, or she came up with …. thinking quickly on ones feet was the mark of a good captain.

"Well, Your Majesty, I was wondering if you – you and your sister – might grace us with your presence aboard the Vigilant. I was thinking a tour. Maybe a short sail? "

"Anna?" The queen looked to her sister. They hadn't ever discussed it, but she thought it likely her sister shared her uneasiness with ships and water. Still one tragedy, no matter how personal, could not mean that they would avoid boats all together.

Anna surprised her with a big grin. "Sure, that sounds fun. I mean you can save us with a giant ice bridge or something right, if suddenly the ship starts sinking."

"Yes, I think we're safe." Elsa returned the grin as she looked to the captain. "Then we are delighted to accept." Her secretary picked up on an unspoken cue immediately, and the man quickly thumbed through a her calendar and indicated a date.

"No, we don't even know if the Vigilant will be here then." In fact she hoped all the visitors would be long gone by that distant date. "How about the day after tomorrow?"

"But, Your Majesty, you have a luncheon with ..."

"Cancel it." Elsa said firmly. "I think this sounds more … fruitful. It's a military research outing."

"As your Majesty wishes."

"Day after tomorrow, good for you Captain?"

"Yes, that's perfect. The time? Is 10:00 a.m. good, Your Majesty?"

Elsa glanced at Anna, "I think we will say between 10 and 11, just in case Princess Sleepyhead takes a little while getting up." She laughed a little as Anna tried to think of a retort but only managed to turn slightly pink. "And Captain," she said as the woman bowed again and prepared to take her leave, "Thank you. This is a delightful offer."

When the captain was out of the room and breathing again, and trying very hard not to recollect that dress, oh my god, that dress, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was the princess again, and she started in right away after clearing her throat.

"Listen, I just want you to know that in this family we have a couple of rules."

Again Fitzwilliam felt like she had walked the contextual plank into the sea of non-sequitur. "Rules, Your Highness?"

"Rule number 1: You can't marry someone you just met." Then she burst out laughing obviously amused by her own joke. Her laughter continued as she wandered away leaving the Captain wondering what rule number two could possibly be.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Every hand was turned out to clean and polish this day. Leave had been canceled, and those ashore called back. Ropes were being coiled, and recoiled and coiled again. The sails were tightly furled. Guns were polished, gear was stowed, even the bedding was being aired. But it was the deck and the woodwork of the Vigilant that the captain required the most attention to. Seamen and women scraped, washed, oiled, and polished the deck. They had been working since she had returned the day before from the castle, and still it did not match the captain's expectations.

"Again," Fitzwilliam roared. "This deck is not done. It needs to shine."

"Aye, aye, Captain," the crewmen replied.

"Shine!" she repeated as she headed aft to check how things were going there, not quite moving fast enough to escape the Duke's notice.

"Quite a bustle of activity," Duke Ledsham said as he looked around. Fitzwilliam was not being completely transparent about the meaning of the sudden spring cleaning of the warship. She had a feeling that telling the Duke that she had invited the royal sisters for a day out would be the wrong thing to do, and she had long ago learned to trust this feeling.

"Clean ship is a happy ship," Fitzwilliam muttered, trying to sidestep the man and continue on without him. Ledsham however made that impossible both with his size blocking most of the passage and his insistence in stepping in front of her no matter where she turned. Finally she relented and spoke again. "How was your meeting with the Queen of Arendelle?"

Ledsham threw his hands into the air and growled, this was the opportunity to vent he had been looking for, "Completely fruitless, annoying wretch that she is."

Fitzwilliam looked down at the Duke her face clearly showing disbelief. Not only was that not in anyway a description of the queen, but this man was supposed to be a diplomat.

He was too taken in by his rant to pay any attention to his audience, so he continued without noticing the captain's reaction."Half an hour she gave me. I represent the imperial power of the continent, and I get half an hour. And the whole time the only thing she will say is 'Arendelle is happy with our relationship with Avalon as it stands.'"

Fitzwilliam thought carefully,"But we don't ..."

"EXACTLY." He turned and thundered. "There is NO relationship. We have no formal treaty. We have NOTHING."

"I see your Grace," Fitzwilliam said, trying to keep her voice in the timbre of reason, even as she was deciding on whether to commiserate, be offended or just plain laugh. "Did you discuss the terms?"

"Half an hour is not enough time to discuss what to have for lunch. I left her the King's proposal. I wouldn't have, she won't understand it, or the great honor we are offering, but she insisted. I intend to return tomorrow to discuss it with her. And this time I intend that we have a proper meeting."

"Ah," Fitzwilliam nodded neutrally, again completely unnoticed.

"Yes, I'll go mid-morning." The duke smiled as he began to appreciate his own decision, his own cleverness. "Mark my words, Captain, I'm not putting up with this nonsense any longer. She thinks she's a ruler, but she's a girl playing at a man's game.

Fitzwilliam gritted her teeth and then forced a smile. "If you will excuse me Your Grace. I have duties to attend to."

* * *

It was late, and Elsa and Anna were sitting around a small table in what they still called "Papa's study," although it had been Elsa's for over a year now. Elsa sipped from a tumbler of wine, the left overs from another dreadful dinner with a hall full of aristocrats she didn't know. Her sister intermittently snatched the glass whenever it was left unattended. Neither were overly tipsy both both were laughing and in high spirits as they read the treaty terms left by the Avalonian Ambassador.

"And the best part … the best part," Elsa snorted as she rifled through the stack of parchment until she found what she was looking for. "Is that after I choose a Prince, I am "permitted" then to make arrangements for you, in loco parentis."

"What?" Anna said, her brow wrinkling.

"As your guardian, I get … I get ... to give you my second choice." Elsa finally managed to choke the words out around a bubble of giggles.

"It says that. It actually says that," Anna said, shocked disbelief warring with breathless laughter.

"Read it," Elsa tossed the stack of papers over to her sister. As Anna began to read she continued with her rant. "It's nice to know that if I'm the brood mare for this little adventure I get my choice of three stallions. The Crown Prince has 'regretfully given his troth to another,'" again she quoted from the document, "but at least it's not just me being sold to the highest bidder. Apparently this time I could even get to be a bidder. And this is in a treaty! The nerve of those people. And the other terms … "

"The other terms seem generous." Anna interjected, confused.

"Of course they are. They don't want anything we have. They don't need anything we have. We are tiny." Elsa indicated how small with her thumb and forefinger. "They are huge." Her hands shot apart the full width of her arms in a the sort of dramatic display that only her sister ever saw. "Avalon has its own trees and fish and probably ice if they look for it. The only thing they want …."

"Is you," Anna said suddenly very serious. "You're not going to agree, are you?"

"Of course not. " Elsa scowled, her good mood evaporating. "I'm not even considering the idea of a formal agreement. Arendelle and Avalon will not be enemies if I can help it, but they're not getting favored status, and they are certainly not taking me with them."

"What do you think they will do when you tell them that?"

"I don't know." Elsa sighed, that was the question. "I really don't know, and that bothers me because there is an enormous gunship sitting in my harbor, and it's capable of making a really nice hole in our kingdom before anything can be done about it." Elsa began to massage her temples. This headache wasn't from the wine, it was from Avalon. She felt a pang of self pity, too, which probably was the wine. Why did things have to be so complicated? She had been prepared to rule a small country that very few people had even heard of; no one had ever discussed the possibility with her of attracting the attention of the major military powers of the world. She felt, when she was completely honest with herself, well out of her league. And then there were the personalities – this Ledsham fellow, pompous ass – and …. Her attention was momentarily distracted by a cracking sound. She looked down at the glass in her hand and it was frosted over, the alcohol a frozen pool of slush. She put the tumbler down, gently. "Do you think that we might have another Hans situation here, Anna?"

"What? Hans?" Anna said missing the unspoken segue to this thought. "Why Hans?"

"In Captain Fitzwilliam?" Elsa sighed again, her expression souring even more, "Is she just another person here to … I don't know … take advantage of us. Part of Avalon's" she waved her hand, "recruitment efforts."

"I don't know. She doesn't sound like Hans."

"Anna, Hans didn't sound like Hans in the beginning."

"Oh," Anna pulled a piece of loose hair from behind her ear and began to play with it. "But you knew something was up … with Hans. You weren't taken in."

"Actually, all I knew was that I needed to talk to you about the problems with bringing thirteen strange people into our home, and me not turning this castle into an ice palace. And … it was really sudden … I don't do sudden, you know."

"Yes, well now I know." Anna returned, putting her hand on her sister's. "And so, now we know. Nothing sudden. And no one moves in. Right away, suddenly like."

Elsa snorted.

"She just seems honest to me." Anna added.

Elsa wanted to respond, actually wanted that to be true, but she couldn't count on it.

"Your Majesty," Kai knocked and then entered. "I have a message for you from the Vigilant. The young man who brought it said you should read it as soon as possible."

Elsa waved him over, took the envelope and broke the seal, sure it was more bad news. The paper was expensive and heavy. The handwriting was nearly illegible. "Greetings to Her Majesty Elsa, Queen of Arendelle," Elsa read after her eyes adjusted to the script.

"Woah, that's formal." Anna got up from her chair and went behind Elsa look at the note herself as the queen continued reading.

"It is my pleasure to inform you that the Avalonian Ambassador, Duke Ledsham, is desirous of a meeting with you tomorrow. He mentioned mid-morning, and he seemed most eager for a lengthy discussion. I wanted to reassure you, however, that despite His Grace's generous plans, the Vigilant is still available to you. We are prepared to leave as soon as you are ready. Very Respectfully, M.C. Fitzwilliam."

Elsa neatly refolded and then tucked the note back into its envelope. She tapped the edge against the table as she thought. This was a development. It was probably … clearly ... an alert of sorts … interesting if the captain had decided to warn her against the arrival of Avalon's own Ambassador.

"Anna, we will be getting up early tomorrow. I intend to be on that boat well before that Ambassador is anywhere around."

* * *

"Man the yards, Mr. Braithwaite," Fitzwilliam ordered as she caught site of the queen's party entering the docks. It looked like she had a small contingent of guards with her. That made sense, Fitzwilliam would have been loathe to send her own king aboard a foreign ship with only their word as protection. Still she was also fairly certain that the Queen of Arendelle didn't need the protection.

"Man the yards!" went the call from the boatswain. Immediately every hand on deck scrambled up into the rigging and spread out until they all stood exactly evenly spaced across all the yards on all the masts. Fitzwilliam didn't have to look back to see what an impressive site it was, she could see that reflected in the queen's expression as she walked toward the gangplank. The boatswain's whistle blew and eight side boys, well seven side boys and one side girl, ran out to line the gangplank. Half the squad of guards preceded the queen and princess the other half followed. And exactly as Elsa's shoe touched the well polished deck of the Vigilant the boatswain called out, "For Her Majesty Elsa, Queen of Arendelle."

Three choruses of "Hip, hip hooray!" rang out from the yards. Fitzwilliam had to suppress a chuckle when the queen stopped and stared in surprise. She only hoped that the noise hadn't carried to the inn where Duke Ledsham had made his residence.

She turned to the First Lieutenant, "Mr. Hanson, fly every scrap of sail that we have. Make way out to sea at our best speed." The wind was light; it would take a good deal of sail to get them out of here with any alacrity. And she wanted to be gone as quickly as possible.

"Aye, aye, Captain." Hanson began the task of actually getting the ship out of the harbor. He turned to his own subordinates and began the chant of orders that would make that happen. "Clear the lines, up anchor, fly mainsails, topsails, royals and gallants, if you please." Each of the subordinate Lieutenants, Midshipmen, and Petty Officers then ran off to repeat the orders to the crew under their direction. The din of flying orders increased five fold then ten fold.

Fitzwilliam wandered over to where the queen and her contingent were standing on deck amidships and looking around at the bustle. She couldn't help the swagger in her walk, this was a good ship and a good crew, and she was proud of them. She glanced down at the teak deck and smiled at the distorted reflection that smiled back. A clean ship made a happy captain.

"That's … something," Elsa said, pointing up to where the crew had been standing when they greeted her. The captain looked as pleased as a child with a new toy, all smiles and confidence.

"It is what is required for heads of state, Your Majesty, we would have been remiss had we not greeted you properly." She realized at this distance that the queen was wearing yet another dress of ice, this one, with a high neckline and a full skirt, was far more modest than the one she had seen her in previously. It glittered in the sunlight, and she found herself wondering if it was cold to the touch, how it would feel under her fingers.

"Good to know. Perhaps you can give lessons to some of my advisers," the queen answered. She looked around as the crew ran about quickly and sometimes frantically preparing to make way. "So what now? I feel in the way."

"Now, Your Majesty, if you and Her Highness would like to join me on the quarterdeck, we'll be out of the line of fire there. After we clear the harbor, I'll give you that tour, I promised then … well, the wind's light, we won't be moving too quickly, and I imagine if I don't get Your Majesty back today there will be repercussions."

"Humph, what's the fun in that," Anna grumped."Can't you make it go fast?"

Fitzwilliam looked a little wounded. The Vigilant was not an "it." "Your Highness, we are dependent upon the wind. Even though I am indeed ranked slightly above God aboard this ship, I cannot change the weather. I cannot make her go any faster than the wind allows."

Elsa stifled a chuckle.

"Elsa?" Anna looked at her sister with softly batting puppy dog eyes.

"No," she said firmly.

"Please?" Anna managed to make the word into two syllables and drag the last syllable out into a whine.

"Go ahead, if you wish to do something about the wind," the captain said with a grin, curious to see the magic that was doubtless the princess' request. "As long as it's less than a gale force the ship will be fine, and the crew could use to do a little work."

"Very well," Elsa affected a long suffering tone. "But I did not come out here to be your northerly breeze."

"Only until we leave the harbor, Your Majesty. Once we're out there I'm sure the wind will be more lively, but I would like to clear the harbor as soon as possible."

Elsa nodded and followed the captain up to the quarterdeck. The captain continued over to the First Lieutenant and told him quietly, "The wind will be picking up on soon, get the lads on it. Reef the royals."

"Aye, Captain," Hanson replied puzzled, but without a question he began issuing the orders. The anchor was up, the lines cleared, and now sail was being pulled in.

"Anytime, Your Majesty," Fitzwilliam said.

Elsa simply twisted her outstretched left hand, her fingers moving as if to snap. Immediately a cold breeze began to blow, and the remaining sails filled. The ship began move, increasing speed, and under the First Lieutenant's expert guidance quickly headed for the harbor entrance.

It was the captain's turn to be amazed. Suddenly she had a better appreciation for both the reason she and the Vigilant were here, and the reason it was good that the Duke was not."Do you have to concentrate to maintain the wind?" she asked.

Elsa arched an eyebrow. "That's a military secret, Captain. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you."

Fitzwilliam colored slightly, "Of course, I'm sorry. But every time you do something like that, I'm amazed."

"Of course you are, Captain, it's magic," was her reply.

* * *

Elsa walked through the lower deck matching the captain's pace, with the captain of her personal guard behind her, as they moved from cannon to cannon. She was trying to look as fascinated as possible during the discussion of pounds, range, and the difference between anti-ship and anti-personnel rounds. The latter actually made her rather nauseated when she realized what they meant.

"This the primary gun-deck. We've twenty-eight guns here, thirty-six pounders."

Elsa heard her man reply, "Thirty-six, that's not usual for Avalon."

The captain chuckled, "Sir, you clearly know your naval cannon." She turned on the nearest gun captain, a midshipman named Lee. Elsa thought he looked all of fifteen, although perhaps that was old enough as he seemed to be in charge of all these cannons. "Mister Lee is the Vigilant the only name this ship has had?"

"No, Captain, it is not, but it is the right and proper name for her."

"And what was she called before?"

"The Courageux, a foul name for a ship if ever there was one, Captain"

"And why is she now the Vigilant?"

"Because two hundred sailors from Avalon in a frigate can make mincemeat of seven hundred and fifty Frogs in a ship of the line, Captain."

The rapid exchange between Captain and Midshipman continued on next to her, but Elsa was much more interested in how many people were down here. She did a quick count. Fourteen per cannon, with the few extra running around, that made nearly four hundred just on the gun deck. She thought there must be about that many on the main deck, not to mention she had seen several squads of Marines in their bright red coats. No wonder Arendelle didn't have a ship this big, her navy probably didn't have this many people in it. She was reminded of her conversation with Anna the night before. Hers was a very tiny kingdom when compared to a place that had more than one, probably many, ships this size, and that thought did nothing to make her less queasy. But she had to admit that same fact made her more impressed with the captain. She was commanding a decent sized village, and she did it well. The queen could see how easily she wore her rank. Everyone looked to her, coming immediately to attention as she walked into a room, all their attention on her even if their eyes were fixed straight ahead. But it wasn't fear; it was respect. And the confidence the captain radiated was not the confidence of someone who had had lessons in proper posture, this was the confidence of someone who felt secure in her place. Someone who knew what they were doing. Elsa felt decidedly envious.

"And why does the Vigilant carry thirty-six pound guns?" The captain asked.

"Because the Frogs need the extra firepower to make up for their tiny di ahhhh." Midshipman Lee grunted in pain when the Captain stomped down hard with her boot on his.

"For God's sake, Lee," she moved to within inches of his face, her voice rising in volume. "I don't care what you're doing, you need to pay attention to who's around you."

"Aye, aye, ma'am!"

Elsa saw the painfully embarrassed midshipman, who was also just plain in pain, glance her way and pale even further. She felt genuinely sorry for him. Her sister, meanwhile, was trying very unsuccessfully not to laugh.

"Stop it, Anna" she hissed. But that only encouraged her more. And the captain was still yelling.

"I hope you've been paying attention to the men around you, for you will need them. We're going to be launching barrels later, and for every one that's missed by this deck you'll be standing watch and watch, am I understood."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" The boy replied

"Very good, Mister Lee." And the captain moved off to the ladder at the rear of the deck.

"So," Anna trotted up to the captain as they finally returned to the quarterdeck at the end of their tour, "why does the Vigilant carry thirty-six pound guns?"

The captain spun on her heel and leaned forward with a stern and serious look, and said in a clear stage whisper, "Because the Gauls need the extra firepower to make up for their tiny dicks."

The captain of the queen's guard looked like his head would explode as he turned a bright crimson. Elsa patted him on the shoulder to let him know she wasn't dying of shock and horror, and Anna clutched her stomach doubled over with laughter.

"The real answer, of course," Fitzwilliam continued, "is that the ship is Gallic, and they build theirs with thirty-six pound guns. We do not because, and if you repeat this to anyone I will find you, and you will regret it, Avalonian ships are not generally as well made. This was a prize."

"A prize?" Anna asked, gasping. "Like you won it?"

"Well you could say that. You see a prize, Your Highness, is a ship that you take from the enemy. I was a wee captain with merely a frigate when I came across this beauty, and I had to have her."

"How ever did you manage that, captain," Elsa asked, suddenly more interested.

Fitzwilliam shrugged, "She was undermanned, and I was very lucky. Very, very lucky."

"I beg to differ, Captain," Lieutenant Hanson said, having just overheard the last of the conversation. "It was not all luck. A squall, a good crew, and the fact that no sane captain would attempt to attack a ship of the line in those conditions is what did it. They were quite surprised when we flew up on 'em our guns run out with boarding parties on deck. It was some fine sailing."

"Fine sailing aside, Mister Hanson, it was costly, and as you said, probably insane." Fitzwilliam said, her tone turning pensive. "We lost some good men. More than we would have if I had just left her alone, or waited until I found another ship to assist us. But I was younger then, not patient," At that point the captain turned and found herself face to face with Elsa, her blue eyes fixed on her, "and not as well versed in the price you pay in battle." They looked at each other for a long moment, before the captain continued, shaking off her contemplation, "I suppose that I should just remember that war is always costly."

* * *

The display of the cannon had been impressive, Elsa thought. Indeed as the captain had said, painted barrels with little flags on them had been released from either side of the boat, and the guns had worked to sink them. It seemed that the main gun-deck had performed well, hitting the barrels every time using the called for gun. Elsa was pleased about that, and she hoped it meant poor Midshipman Lee had made up for earlier.

Captain Fitzwilliam did seem to take her duty training the young officers, who she called the "young gentlemen and ladies," quite seriously. During the practice firing she had put the "young lady" in charge, handing over command of the giant ship as well as her gold pocket watch for timing the attacks to Midshipman Wainwright. Midshipman, Midshipwoman being far too cumbersome a title Elsa decided, Wainwright had been visibly shaking when she took the watch. Lieutenant Hanson explained, as he had become her guide to the mysterious workings around her, that young Mistress Wainwright was new to this boat and the sea; "all of twelve," he had called her. Elsa considered what she had been doing at twelve: French, maths, literature, and telling her parents that they shouldn't touch her anymore. Heavens, Wainwright was young.

Elsa had learned several other things from Hanson as well. Fitzwilliam would foot the bill for the powder they expended for training, but apparently this wasn't too much of a consideration as she had Mistress Wainwright come about and fire broadsides until both her commands and the gun-deck's reactions were in good enough time to suit the captain. The pocket watch was a gift from Fitzwilliam's mother, a woman whose status on this ship placed her and the Virgin Mary at the same level. This explained the midshipman's nerves, dropping the watch would have affected her life very negatively, far more so that any lack of performance with the ship would.

Now, everyone sufficiently impressed and deafened by the broadsides, the Vigilant was making her way back to the harbor. It was late afternoon, coming on evening. The activity of sailing never stopped, there was far much more raising and lowering of sails to catch just the right amount of wind than Elsa would have predicted.

"How ever do they manage up there?" The queen pointed to the sailors at the very top of the rigging.

Fitzwilliam looked back from where she stood near the rail and returned,"It's not such a difficult thing, once you get over being afraid."

"Easy for you to say," Elsa thought and then realized she also said it aloud.

"Excuse me, do you think I can't climb the rigging?" The captain walked to her side, a peculiar expression coloring her face. Elsa heard some muttering behind her. Lieutenant Hanson had been joined by another officer, Lieutenant Smythe, and it sounded like they were in conversation. She looked the captain up and down trying to decide if she was baiting her. Not once had she seen an officer in the rigging today.

"So, have you? I mean really? "

Fitzwilliam drew herself up even taller,"Your Majesty, is that a challenge?"

The muttering behind her began again, Elsa took that as a cue. "No, no. I didn't mean that."

"Of course you did Your Majesty, and I never back away from a challenge."

Fitzwilliam went to the ladder to the main deck and yelled. "O'Day."

A crewman snapped upright and ran over to the ladder. "Yes, Captain?"

"Who's the best topman?"

"Well, Captain, not to boast but I would say that'd be me."

"Thought so, O'Day." She hopped down from the quarterdeck. "Race, you up the mainmast and back?"

"Captain?" The seaman took a step back in surprise.

Elsa walked over to the ladder. The seaman tugged his forelock and dipped his head. Elsa returned a nod. "That's not fair. Your his captain. He's not going to try his hardest."

"O'Day wouldn't shirk, would you O'Day?"

"Captain ..."

The boatswain, who had come by to see what the fuss was about, protested. "Captain, you're putting the lad in a difficult position."

"Just hear me out." Fitzwilliam turned to O'Day. "Now O'Day, this lady here," she waved vaguely in Elsa's direction, "has implied at I am not adept at climbing the rigging."

"That's not what I said!" Elsa protested.

"Pay her no mind." She leaned forward to O'Day, "I need you to do your best. If you beat me, you beat me. There's no shame in it for me. And I'll give you a crown ….no twenty crowns for your trouble."

"Captain, that's a poor idea. It's more than his wages for … for years," the boatswain yelped imagining the damage the young man might do with that much money.

"Alright, a crown for you, the other nineteen sent back to your family, and you know I'll do it."

O'Day nodded. He allowed himself just a moment to imagine what his family might do with that bounty. He nodded again this time with confidence. "You're on. Captain, ma'am. And I won't take it easy on ya."

"Good man," Fitzwilliam said as she sat down at the rail to pull off her boots.

"What are you doing?" Elsa hissed as she came to where the captain was stripping off her clothing.

"I can't climb dressed like this." Fitzwilliam replied, ignoring the larger question as she stood back up in just her socks. Then she yelled out "Mistress Wainwright!"

The young midshipman sprinted across the quarterdeck and stood at rigid attention. "Aye, aye Captain."

"Here take these," the Captain tossed her boots to the waiting Midshipman followed by her jacket, her waistcoat and her sword, "Careful of the sword, now. Don't stick our guests with it."

"Aye, Aye, Captain."

"Oh and this," Fitzwilliam threw her hat up to the young woman who had to scramble madly to catch it with both arms full of clothing.

Then the Captain cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders.

Elsa wagged her finger. "If you kill yourself, I will never forgive you."

"Ready, O'Day?" she asked with a wink to the queen.

"Aye, Captain," came the reply. Fitzwilliam and O'Day walked to the mainmast.

She turned to her boatswain who was holding his head in his hands. "On your call, Mr. Braithewait."

"On your mark," came the less than enthusiastic call. "Set. Go!"

The captain moved quickly up the ratlines, but it wasn't long before she was half a yard behind O'Day and then several yards. There was a brief moment where she almost caught up, just as they both clambered over the royal yard, but O'Day was clearly back in the lead as they reached the top of the mast. O'Day immediately started climbing back down but the captain didn't. She reached over and grabbed an unused line and started working at a knot.

"What is she doing?" Elsa asked Lieutenant Hanson.

"I really don't want to look," he mumbled but he shaded his eyes from the sun and glanced up. "She's gonna kill herself, that's what she's doing."

Just at that moment Fitzwilliam cast herself off from the top of the mainmast, her foot in a loop of the halyard, using a series of knots like a block and tackle. She shot down toward the deck, her fall barely controlled, slowing only slightly as she descended.

Elsa watched in perplexed horror, and then with a thought and a gesture of her hands she placed a large mound of powdered snow right at the spot she expected to see the captain's skull crack open.

Fitzwilliam plunged into the snow, and then after a long moment, came sputtering back up to the surface.

"Cold!" she exclaimed. "Bloody hell, that's cold! And then she started to laugh, a joyous booming laugh."Well done, O'Day. You beat me."

"Thank ya, Captain," the seaman wheezed.

Fitzwilliam started to swim her way out of the snow. "See Mr. Braithwaite for your winnings once we get back to shore." Stamping her feet on the deck to shake the last of the snow off, she looked to the boatswain. "Dole it out as you see appropriate Braithwaite, but let the lad have some fun."

"Aye, Captain."

Elsa came down the ladder from the quarterdeck, just behind Midshipman Wainwright who was running to the captain carrying her clothing. "So," she asked once Elsa reached her, "are you convinced?"

"I'm convinced you're a lunatic," the queen replied. But then the captain dropped to the deck and started struggling with her boots. When Fitzwilliam looked up and gave her the most idiotic smile, and she had to start laughing too.

"I didn't need that snow, you know."

"No, you need some good sense."

"Maybe, but not the snow." The captain left Wainwright still holding her hat, jacket and sword, and wandered back to the snow mound. With a quickness that surprised Elsa, Fitzwilliam scooped up a double handful of snow, patted it into a ball, and tossed the ball from one hand to the other.

"You're going to lose," said Elsa in warning.

"But, I'll go down fighting." And she threw a low sidearm toss that rotated up and hit the queen right on the shoulder, splashing her face with wet snow.

"You are so out gunned," Elsa replied as she started generating a stream of snow balls. Her aim was not quite as good and her arm was certainly not as strong but she had the advantage of not needing to stop to actually make a snow ball, and she could throw with her left while she generated a very handy ice shield with her right. The snowball fight quickly turned in her favor.

It wasn't long before the captain was entirely drenched, her white shirt and waistcoat plastered to her fit body, rivulets of icy water streaming from her hair. She pulled off her white neckcloth and waved it over her head. "Surrender," she chuckled, "I surrender."

"Very well." Elsa brought her hands together with another thought and the snow all rose up and then dispersed. It wasn't until she had done that, that she realized everyone on deck, most of the crew of the Vigilant, was staring at them ... staring at her. What had she done? Was this a mistake? Had the crew not known? Even if they did was it wise to remind them? She found herself waiting for the first cry of "Monster!"

"Mistress Wainwright!" the captain called again. The young lady trotted to her and offered up what she still held. Fitzwilliam only took her sword. Then with a quick four long steps the captain crossed to Elsa and kneeled down on one knee. She presented the hilt of her sword to her. "Avalon concedes," she said with mock humility, bowing her head.

"Arendelle accepts your surrender," Elsa said in return taking the sword.

Then from behind her she heard Lieutenant Hanson's voice. "Arendelle accepts the concession of Captain Fitzwilliam of the Vigilant," he called in a loud voice. "Three cheers for Arendelle."

As the crew shouted, "Hip, hip hooray," their faces all in varying stages of mirth, Elsa felt something warm inside of her. She felt accomplished. She felt fully, truly confident.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The captain escorted the queen and the princess off the ship, the boatswain's whistle trilling, the snap of her sharp salute to the quarterdeck once she had stepped off the ship adding a small punctuation. She had been chatting with the queen about snow, or the price of tea, or something, and was resuming that conversation when the two burly soldiers stepped to either side of her.

It wasn't surprising that there were people waiting for her when she left the ship, in fact it was surprising that they hadn't just come on board to get her as soon as the Vigilant docked. She knew that by now the Ambassador would have realized that she had misled him about today. And she could well imagine that this realization did not sit well with him. So when two Avalonian soldiers, men from the 33rd Regiment of Foot, Ledsham's Own, were waiting with bayonets fixed at the end of the gangplank, she was not at all surprised.

"Captain, you'll be coming with us, the Ambassador wants a word with you," the smaller of the two said in a reedy voice.

"In a moment gentlemen, I wish to ..."

"Now," the larger interjected. "You'll come now, unless you want us to drag you there."

Fitzwilliam turned to the queen, prepared to wish her well and a safe journey home, and suddenly she was being dragged backwards on her heels.

"Gentlemen," she grunted, twisting out of their hold. "I will come with you peacefully if you just allow me a moment ..." This sentence was cut off by an arm around her throat.

"What are you doing?" It was the queen asking. In the time it had taken the men to grab Fitzwilliam, her guard had surrounded them, their pikes lowered. "Unhand her."

"Begging your pardon, milady, but we gots orders for this one here. Duke Ledsham, the official Ambassador from Avalon needs to see her."

"Let her go, or I guarantee you'll look more like Swiss cheese than escorts." The guards moved their pikes in closer.

"Your Majesty, is there a problem?" the captain of her guard came over.

She looked over at the alarmed faces of the two ruffians who had just realized who she was. "Arrest these men. I want them held until the Duke himself comes to get him." She turned to the men themselves, "And when he does come to retrieve you, I trust you will convey my extreme displeasure at this incident. You might remind him that if he cannot behave like a gentleman, he really needn't try to see me. It will make any further discussions impossible." The soldiers protested, but they were removed none too gently.

Fitzwilliam bent down and picked up her hat from the street. She dusted it off on her breeches with deliberate slowness to allow her time to consider. "Your Majesty, I find myself again apologizing to you for some very unfortunate circumstances."

"It wasn't you."

The captain gave her a wry smile, and chuckled darkly, "Oh, but I think this time it was; if we are truly honest, it was me."

Elsa looked her up and down. "You didn't tell him were I was, did you? That's what this is all about."

"I didn't think it appropriate for His Grace to come with us. It seemed to me that the tenor of the day might be lessened if I allowed the work of politics to interfere with your leisure. And leisure seems to be difficult for you to come by. Again, I apologize; it was presumptuous of me."

"Oh please, if you're going to keep that awful little man away from me, presume away." Then she winced, "I'm sorry, he is your Ambassador."

Fitzwilliam shrugged. "He is also an awful little man, Your Majesty." The captain extended her hat in her hand and bowed with a flourish. "Since it seems the bulk of your protection has been put to other use, might I escort you home?"

Anna stuck her head over her sister's shoulder. "That would be great!"

"Yes," Elsa added, a little started by Anna's intrusion, "I think … it would be great."

"Great," Anna repeated with a smile, and then she dashed up ahead with the remaining guards, leaving the queen alone with Fitzwilliam.

"Is she always like that?" Fitzwilliam asked.

"Anna," the queen chuckled. "Yes, that is pretty much her, although sometimes she is … more so."

"More so?" The captain smiled, "You are a patient woman."

Elsa shook her head, "Not always, and Anna's grown. She is truly an amazing person. Once I came to appreciate that then I found patience wasn't necessary. But I was admiring your patience earlier. You seemed remarkably calm when you handed over your ship to your Midshipman. And she's certainly lively."

"Alice?" The captain chuckled, "Yes, she reminds me of myself at that age, all energy and confidence with no grace or tact. Although we're slowly convincing her of the latter with both the carrot and the stick."

The queen looked at her quizzically.

"Your Majesty, Midshipmen are like rugs; they must be beaten regularly. Of course I am far too lax a mistress … when I was her age I thought thrashings were a part of the routine, rather like dinner, which I was rarely able to sit for."

Elsa giggled nervously, "Really?"

"Yes," she smiled back, "really. You seemed shocked. I guess royalty aren't reared with the same loving care as the rest of us urchins."

Elsa threw her shoulders back in an indignant protest. "I was spanked ..." she frowned in thought, "twice."

"Twice? Well, then..."

"But it wasn't my fault; it was Anna's," she shot an evil look at her sister who was well ahead of them, "both times."

"Why I am not surprised to hear that," Fitzwilliam chuckled. "And the scoundrel blamed you?"

"No, of course not," the queen returned. "Once nanny decided that since I was older, I should have 'known better' - and there might have been some ice involved. The second time," Elsa sighed, "Anna just looked so sad and embarrassed, I said I did it."

"Your Majesty, what a gallant example of sisterly love."

"Yes, indeed it was," Elsa made a face, "she used a wooden spoon. Ow."

Fitzwilliam threw her head back and laughed out loud, a deep full throated laugh, a laugh Elsa found contagious.

"So do you have any sisters or brothers, Captain?"

"No, well – yes. I have four half brothers and two half sisters, but we didn't grow up together. It was just me and my mother, poor woman. Now there is a saint if ever there was one."

"I take if you were not a quiet child?"

"Oh, heavens no. I was horrid. I ran with this pack of boys. More like a gang I guess. They were all just a little older than I was. I remember I had to fight them all at once to be allowed into their fine company. It was their initiation. Oh, I was a mess when I came home that day." The captain shook her head remembering. "I just managed to limp in the door, cuts and bruises everywhere, both eyes blacked, lips swollen, covered in mud, my clothes torn and ruined." Rolling her eyes she continued, "My mother bathed me, patched up my wounds, fed me soup, and then beat me within an inch of my life and kept me in the house for a month. A month of pure misery, for both of us I believe. I couldn't stand being stuck inside."

"Indeed." Elsa let out a puff of air and looked away, her mind clearly wandering.

"Did I offend, Your Majesty?" The captain stopped walking, her face a picture of concern.

"No. No," Elsa tried a laugh but it came out forced. "It's just that I spent a lot of my childhood indoors. In my room. My parents were afraid I was dangerous, with my magic, and actually so was I … afraid. So I isolated myself." Her gaze drifted to the ground.

"I am so sorry." The captain stepped in front of Elsa and took her hand. "I truly am. I can't imagine how that must have felt."

Elsa looked back into her eyes, warmed by the concern she saw there. "Thank you. I'm sorry, too. But it's what happened, and I can't change that." She made another effort at a smile, and this one was more successful. "However my not having gotten out does mean that I am sadly lacking in delightful stories of my childhood." She clasped the captain's hand with both her own. "If you would, you could tell me another."

"As you wish, Your Majesty, I have many … many, many, many examples of what not to do if you wish to be an upstanding citizen." Fitzwilliam put a hand to her head as if in great thought, keeping the other in Elsa's. "Let's see. We terrorized the whole village; no one was safe. We stole pies; we hid all the blacksmith's hammers; we flooded the sheep pen; we tipped cows."

"Tipped cows?" Elsa's personal experience with cows was limited, but she was pretty sure that "tipping" would be something they objected to.

"Exactly what it sounds like, only harder. Turns out they tip back. We spent more time on our backs then the cows did. And once … ah, this was splendid … we hid in a tree in the main square, just outside the market. We snuck out in the middle of the night and stayed up there until morning, so no one would see us, and the next morning when anyone came close enough; we dropped rotten fruit on them. It was such a mess. It was glorious."

"I can only imagine."

"You would be surprised how many people don't find it odd that a pear and an apple fall from the same tree. We got just about everyone, even the mayor. But Dicky fell out of the tree laughing at that, broke his arm I think, and then the jig was up. No wonder the town celebrated a holiday when I went to sea. Sort of a 'thank god, she's gone' festival." Elsa rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Seriously, my mother wrote me about it."

Ahead the gates to the castle were open to the bridge, the guards at their posts. Even with the faintly glowing sky there were torches in the courtyard. Everything had a rosy hue to it. The captain slowed her steps.

Elsa felt a flicker of dismay; she didn't want this walk to end. "Please, come in for dinner." She said, "I'm enjoying your company, and I'm fairly certain whatever we're having is better than what you were planning."

"Your Majesty, I shouldn't. We've been out all day, and while you seem none the worse for it, I am afraid I stink like a sailor."

Elsa sniffed delicately, delighting in the captain's blush."Yes well, we do have baths in the castle. I was actually planning to use one before dinner myself."

"But I have no clothes."

"Again, this is a castle not some ship. We've also have clothing here. I can loan you a dress." The captain's face screwed up in such distaste that Elsa had to laugh. "Or we can find something else. We have options."

"I just don't ..."

"Please. Don't make the Queen of Arendelle beg. My sister will never let me hear the end of it."

"Very well, if you are sure. I am always Her Majesty's servant."

"Wonderful. I'll get Gerda to sort out your bath, and I'll have her bring you something to change into. And I promise it will neither be a dress nor made of ice."

* * *

There was the main dining hall, with its long long table of dark wood and incredibly high backed chairs, but there was also a smaller dining room. That was the one used when it was just family, or in this case family plus one. Anna had dashed off to find Kristof and brought him back; he was by this point very much part of the family. Everyone had bathed. Anna had changed into a simple day dress. Kristof wore what Kristof always wore unless someone forced him to wear something else. Elsa had remade her dress, this time in the less encumbering style she preferred. She had spent so long tightly wrapped, hidden in her clothing, that it was positively liberating to wear a lot less. Also she felt … she struggled for a word and couldn't find it … better about herself, about how she looked. As Anna had said, "Different, but a good different."

They waited for the captain to join them, and Kristof asked a few short questions about their day. He was eloquent as always. What did they do? Long silence. What was the ship like? Anna was more than happy to give a full recitation of everything that had happened, which allowed Elsa to sit back, sip on a glass of wine, and just watch. It was fun watching her sister and Kristof, they were unbearably cute together, him long suffering and quiet, her rarely suffering and never quiet.

"So then Elsa and the captain got into a snowball fight."

"Really?" Kristof said giving the queen a disbelieving look.

Elsa took that as her cue. "Yes, really. I won."

"Whoah, big surprise there."

Kai then opened the door to the dining room and announced, "Captain Fitzwilliam." Fitzwilliam walked in, her hat under her arm, her sword at her side. The clothing Gerda had found, and it hadn't been easy to come up with anything in her size and suitable for dinner, was of a different cut than she was used to, but it was quite comfortable, perhaps a tiny bit large. The immaculate cream trousers hung outside her boots, the blue coat, neither short nor long, reached mid-thigh and had a high collar. The coat was designed to be worn closed, with more than a dozen small hooks in the interior that Fitzwilliam had struggled with, since she had no one to dress her. She particularly liked the embroidery. The coat had elegant gold cuffs exquisitely embroidered with a flower she recognized as the Arendelle's crest.

She entered the room, bowed to the queen and to the princess. Then she walked over to Elsa and leaned down. "Is this presentable?"

"Yes," she said with a slight stutter, "it … it is."

Anna exclaimed, "Oh … wow! The two of you. Just … just wow."

Fitzwilliam looked back at her, "Is there a problem, Your Highness?"

Anna answered, "No, no, it's just that … yeah, wow. That coat, that's my father's and … Elsa looks exactly like mother, and … when the two of you were there ... I mean except for the hair color, and you don't have a mustache, which is good, but you looked just like him, them, when you leaned over, but not in a creepy way ... kinda in a good way if you know what I mean... You look good. It's nice to see, really."

"If you are sure that this is acceptable?" The captain was taking in what Anna had said.

"It's fine. It looks good on you," answered Elsa, "and Gerda did ask." She patted the chair next to her, "Sit, I think the cook is anxious to serve. She gets unhappy when we keep the food waiting too long." She shot a look at Anna.

"Hey, it's not always me, you know."

"Exactly when is it not you?"

Anna turned to Kristof, "Help me out here. I'm not always late."

"I don't know, Anna. I think she's got you on that one."

Dinner was good, as the queen had promised. The wine was excellent. Conversation consisted of a discussion of the particulars of ice harvesting, which was mostly narrated by Anna, and an explanation of the traditions and customs of the sea which was entirely provided by Fitzwilliam. Dessert was a chocolate torte, which was delicious but too rich for the captain. After a couple of bites she pushed her plate away, and reached to refill her wine glass.

"Are you going to eat that?" Anna asked, using her fork to indicate the cake.

"No, do you want it?"

Anna nodded enthusiastically.

Fitzwilliam started to push the small plate over to the princess when another fork came down from above and pinned it to the table. The captain pulled her hand back.

"Not so fast, captain. You can just leave that plate right there."

Fitzwilliam looked over surprised to see the ferocious expression on the queen's face.

"That's chocolate," she said, as if that was enough explanation.

"Oh, come on. I asked first," Anna complained.

"And I'm the queen … and your older sister." She pulled the plate back toward her.

"Hey, that's not fair."

"Monarchy isn't," the queen replied, her eyes twinkling.

"Captain," Anna asked plaintively, "don't you think I should get it?"

Fitzwilliam took a breath. Clearly this was a contentious area, but she was willing to face the danger. "You both have good points," she started. "I would suggest a duel, but I'm afraid, Your Highness, if you were to win there would be an unfortunate taint on your succession. So perhaps a compromise?" She gave Elsa her most beguiling smile. "A division of the cake?"

Elsa pondered this as if it were the declaration of Arendelle's borders. "Very well," she used her fork to break the torte into two sections, one noticeably larger than the other.

"Yeah, right … a division … and guess who gets to divide," Anna grumped.

Elsa reached over, pushed the smaller portion on to her own plate, and then handed the rest to the captain. "Please deliver this to my ungrateful, suspicious sister, who always thinks the worst of me."

"Now, that's really not fair. I do not think that, usually. I mean if it weren't chocolate, I wouldn't take it, now that you said that," she fairly snatched the plate from Fitzwilliam's hand, "but since it is, 'Thank you, Your Majesty,'" she performed the best curtsey she could from a seated position.

"You're welcome, Your Highness."

As Fitzwilliam retook her seat, Anna continued, her mouth full of torte, "So you dooouuulhl?" She swallowed. "You know how to duel?"

"Yes, of course," the Captain replied without thinking. "It's a necessity for someone … someone like me. But I try to avoid pistols. The small sword is much more elegant, and less messy if used well."

The queen sighed.

"But I have sworn off it … for the foreseeable future."

"You could teach me, though right? You could teach me to you know … use a sword and stuff?"

"I could," Fitzwilliam answered carefully, "but I'm not sure if I may." She looked at the queen.

"Anna, why would you want to learn how to fight? It's not like I'm going to let you."

"Because it sounds cool. It's exercise, and I need the exercise. And what if … what if Huns come in the middle of the night … I'll need to fight then. And … and what do you mean 'let me'?!"

"I mean ..."

"Your Majesty, it never hurts to know how to use a sword, even if you never really plan on it," Fitzwilliam intervened. "And the art of sword play teaches discipline, control, balance, and discipline …."

Elsa's expression changed. She hadn't really thought of it that way. Perhaps it wasn't like such a bad idea after all. "Very well, your arguments have convinced me. You may teach my sister. Will you do it here?"

"Yes, as long as you don't mind if I bring my Midshipmen along on occasion. I'm sure you have a training yard."

"I'm sure I do too," Elsa answered, although she really didn't have any idea where it was, "and that's fine. I'll let the Captain of the Guard know, so there aren't any misunderstandings." She looked up in thought, remembering the Midshipmen and how Fitzwilliam dealt with them. She smiled. "You won't have any problem with her rank? I would want her to get the full benefit of your experience and work ethic."

"Of course not, Your Majesty. There is not much place for rank in the training yard. There are only two that matter there. The master," the captain indicated herself, "and the student," she pointed at the princess.

* * *

It was late, but not too late when dinner finished. Anna and Kristof headed off to wherever, to do things that the queen really didn't want to know about just yet. So, Elsa offered a tour of the castle. Fitzwilliam accepted. She didn't want to leave. She supposed it might be that she didn't want to run into the Duke, but in truth that didn't concern her much. She was enjoying herself too much to want to leave.

"And this is the library."

"Impressive."

"Captain, that's the fifth time you've said that in as many rooms. This is a castle. It is supposed to be impressive."

"Yes, well I've been in other castles, and trust me not many of them have as many books as this one does. I'm not actually sure that some nobility know how to read."

"We ..." Elsa corrected herself, "I like to read. I always have."

"Which explains that fascinating mind."

Elsa looked to the captain and found her looking back. Her breath caught for a moment, then she spoke, in a softer more intimate tone.

"I wondered if there were something else I might call you, besides Captain Fitzwilliam."

"You could call me "Fitz," that's what my friends do."

"Hmmm," the queen mused, "that is not quite what I had in mind." She thought back to the note she had received from the captain. "What does the 'M' stand for?"

"Oh," Fitzwilliam rolled her eyes and sighed, "Millicent."

"Millicent?" The queen chuckled, "You're kidding?"

"Would I kid about something like that?" Fitzwilliam sighed, "I was named for a great aunt. Millicent Carolina."

"So," the queen asked playfully, "does anyone call you Milly?"

"Does anyone call you Elsie?"

"Ah, yes then. I'll take that as a 'no.'" The queen cocked her head, "But I rather like Carolina. Would you mind if I called you that?"

The captain smiled back, "No. I would very much like it if you would call me Carolina."

"So you will call me Elsa. When we are alone."

"Of course, Queen Elsa."

"Elsa." She answered firmly.

The captain took a breath. "Elsa. Very well, Elsa. That may take some getting used to."

"Then, I'll just have to make sure you have opportunities to practice."

Carolina blushed, and then quickly looked around the library, her eyes falling on the painting dominating the room.

"And these are your parents?"

"Yes," Elsa answered, taking a step closer.

"I see the coat. The red sash really does set it off," Carolina felt the blood pounding in her ears. She willed her breathing under control. "And you do ..."

"... look exactly like my mother."

"And that is not exactly an original observation."

"No, but I don't take it as an insult."

"Well if it is any consolation, I hear it as well, too. It seems that I resemble my father. Something about my eyes."

Elsa looked closely into her eyes. They were the warmest brown she had ever seen, with tiny gold flecks. "Handsome man, then."

A pleasant delicate sent wafted around Carolina. Elsa's hair, she mused. With that thought, suddenly she was acutely aware of everything about the woman so close to her, her hair, her dress, her bare shoulders, her eyes ... her lips. She took half a step back. This was the Queen of Arendelle. "He certainly thinks so."

Elsa took Carolina's hand and led her to a plush sofa that had a view of the harbor. She sat and indicated the place next to her. She wasn't going to chase Carolina around the library, and this should keep her close. "You haven't mentioned your father, before …."

"My parents weren't..." Carolina sat and fumbled with a cushion. "They aren't married. I didn't actually meet my father until I was older."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Elsa said, sorry indeed to have brought up such an embarrassing topic.

"Don't be." She shrugged. "My mother wasn't."

Elsa choked.

"My parents' relationship was brief, passionate, and more than a bit scandalous, so I won't bore you with it."

When she could breathe again Elsa said, "That doesn't sound boring."

Caroline just smiled."It is," she looked around the room, her eyes coming to where she saw her ship, lanterns illuminating its outline, "and I'm sure we can find many more interesting things to talk about rather than my parents."

Elsa could accept that. They had only know each other for what? Four days, although it seemed like longer. This did, however, leave the conversational ball in Carolina's court. "So what shall we talk about?"

Carolina thought for a moment. She could feel Elsa's eyes on her. Her presence, close on the small sofa, was like banked coals, some kindling and there would be a fire. She considered her two choices. One, the safer course for sure, would be to make her excuses and leave. The other was … and she really didn't dare follow that thought to where it eventually led, but at its essence it was … not leaving.

"Actually, I am more of a woman of action, and I still owe you a dance."

"Really? How so?"

"At your ball, I was nervous; I was stiff; I was challenging people to duels."

Elsa laughed.

"I was not at my best." She looked into those exquisite blue eyes, "And for you I would wish to be at my best."

Elsa held her gaze a long moment before answering, "Very well then."

Carolina got up. She decided on removing her sword, although she could certainly dance with it. Then she offered her hand to Elsa, who accepted it and rose gracefully. She led her over to the center of the library where there was sufficient clear space to dance. Taking Elsa's left in her right she brought her left into the position she knew to be correct, formal, hand just beneath her left shoulder blade. Elsa brought her right to her shoulder.

"There is just one problem," Elsa observed. "We don't have any music."

"Yes, well, I did think of that. I'll hum."

"Very well then, shall we?"

The captain tapped out a waltz beat the index finger of her left hand. The she started to hum .. badly ...tunelessly. Elsa stopped in her tracks and stared, a giggle bubbled up from somewhere.

"What … what's the matter?" Carolina asked.

"I bet it's the cannon," Elsa muttered. "So, why don't I provide the music? I believe I can remember one or two waltzes."

"That bad?"

"Oh yes."

"Then I cede the position of musician to you."

Carolina moved Elsa back into the standard waltz position. Elsa counted softly, one, two, three, one two, three and she began to hum the very waltz they had danced at her ball, but it seemed entirely different. The captain was still a strong lead, but she was relaxed and smiling. Elsa felt relaxed too, and she had no desire to glance down; she didn't care what her feet were doing as long as she could stay right here. They glided smoothly around the library, twirling in graceful loops. The tempo of the music increased, and Carolina pulled Elsa closer, her left hand gradually making it's way down to the small of Elsa's back. The dress was cool, but not cold. She could feel the tiny crystals that made it, and that they were the only things between her and the woman beneath. And when the waltz tempo slowed, she did not return to their previous position. She stayed close. Her left hand shifted in a slow stroking motion. She could have remained like this forever. Elsa stopped humming.

"Ummm, you are better," Elsa said in a breathy voice.

"And if I told you that I practiced every day since the ball?" Fitzwilliam said as they rocked slowly to an unheard tune, her lips nearly touching Elsa's ear.

"I would say you benefited from the practice."

Carolina shifted slightly to her left to bring then in line. Her right hand moved to Elsa's face gently cupping her jaw, lifting, so that they looked into each other eyes. She could live forever in those eyes.

"Elsa … may I ..."

"Please."

The kiss was slow and tentative, their lips just touching for a long moment. Then they both moved into each other. Carolina began to gently explore, nibbling, licking, using all of her senses to guide her to do that, and not that, but oh, definitely that. Her hand began to roam, too, memorizing the contours of Elsa's back, the way her breath caught when she moved her fingers. But when she looked down, she saw Elsa's eyes open. The queen looked disconcerted. Carolina followed her eye line to the wall, to the painting. With a throaty chuckle she swept the queen off her feet and carried her to the sofa, which faced out over the harbor. Gently lying her down, she knelt near her head, ready to resume.

"Uh," Elsa said still breathing heavily. "Do you think you could take off the coat?"

"As you wish, my queen," she said with a grin, and she began to unfasten the long row of hooks. But she was in no hurry, they had plenty of time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So thanks to everyone who has stuck with me ... or actually who has found me. I am pleased that someone besides me is reading this because I thought it would be only me. Reviews are lovely gifts to give a writer, but then you know that.


	5. Chapter 5

Henry Evenrath, Duke of Ledsham looked around his "estate." It was only a house, not even a large house, but it was the best he could find for let in this ridiculous backwater excuse for a kingdom. This was not what he was accustomed to. This was not what was worthy of his station. This was not Avalon.

The hour was late. He was pacing because he had nothing to do. He had had nothing to do, for the last week and a half mind you, because apparently Her Majesty had decided to punish him for daring to try to apprehend Fitzwilliam. Punish him! For something that was his right? The idea enraged him; it made him so furious that he couldn't see when he thought of it. He intended that they would both regret their behavior. He hadn't yet quite decided out how, but he was determined. He was also well equipped.

He had brought two squads of his own regiment, men loyal to him above anyone, because he had considered that the vaunted captain might get queasy over the measures he was prepared to take to get the queen back to Avalon. He had also made the fortunate decision to include in this group men with skills beyond marksmanship and marching. He was waiting for two of those men now, those skillful men.

There was a rap on the door. His valet went to answer it and soon two corporals came into the sitting room where he paced. He knew they were corporals, but right now they appeared to be any other working class inhabitant of Arendelle or almost any kingdom for the matter.

The two men came to attention, which he waved them off. He didn't need niceties now, he needed information. He did, however, decide to sit. He had an unfinished glass of Scotch on his desk and a forgotten cigar smoldered waiting for him.

"I take it no luck, Milord?" The speaker was named Boothe. He was tall and lanky and the more talkative of the two. His companion Hogarth was larger but far less communicative.

"Damn woman still won't see me," Duke Ledsham exclaimed. "It's intolerable. Did you find Fitzwilliam?"

"Captain's been staying on the ship, although not much during the day. Smythe says she's sleepin' there. Get's up right early and scarper's off though. Don't come back till about midnight."

Ledsham grimaced. As much as he'd like to go roust the captain out of her bed and drag her down here right now, he couldn't risk being permanently banned from seeing the queen. He took a long swallow of the watered down drink, and reached to pick up the cigar.

"What else did you find out? Why is the queen protecting Captain Fitzwilliam? And why is she so damn obstinate?"

"Can't help you with the last one, milord," Boothe chuckled, "but we did find somethin'. Seems that's where the good captain's going. She's giving sword lessons or some such crap to the princess. She's there all day. She stays for dinner. She stays afterward. Awful attentive she is."

"And you think something's going on … with the princess?"

Boothe shrugged and leaned on the desk. "Maybe, milord, but the princess has a fellow. He's in and out, but everyone talks about them together. Kristof's his name. So my money's not on the princess … but I think you're on the right scent you are."

"Then what … or should I say who?" Ledsham said furiously stubbing out his cigar. "There's no one else in there, but …." Then the Duke laughed, a nasty snarly wheeze. "That cheeky bitch ... the queen. God, she needs to come down a couple of pegs. A little humility will do her good."

"Yep, I agree, it figures to be that the captain has been keepin' the company of the queen. Five'll get you ten they're having a stitch."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Ledsham played with the glass in his hand, watching the pale gold liquid swirl as he grinned. "I've heard Fitzwilliam gets around. Rumor is she had a brush with the Comtesse d'Artois; I bet they made a fine pair."

"I heard she's done half the Marchionesses of the Continent." Boothe sneered, "Wouldn't see the sport in it if I was a bird, but I'd do her myself. She needs it proper. Fix what's wrong with her, I would."

Hogarth laughed in a deliberate tone as he considered that picture.

Ledsham continued in a thoughtful manner as he stroked his chin for effect."So our good captain leaves for the castle early in the morning returning at night just early enough to forestall rumors of impropriety, which suggests there is definitely impropriety. Well done gentlemen, this is a very important development indeed."

"We thought you'd be pleased, Milord." Boothe said. "You gonna pull the rug out from under the captain? Knock her back a bit?"

Ledsham scoffed."Oh no, you think too small. This is the key to our whole problem."

"How so, milord?"

"The queen strikes me as a great deal more innocent than our good captain. She's young, and young women are given to fantasies of true love. It's quite probable there are real feelings there. And the captain, experienced as she may be, won't allow someone with whom she has this sort of relationship to suffer on her behalf. She still believes in that chivalry nonsense." The sour expression on Ledsham's face told exactly what he thought of chivalry.

"And that's somethin' we can use."

"Absolutely. Feelings are a weakness. Feelings will be our lever to break open Arendelle and retrieve the prize we've been sent to retrieve."

"She's not going to go willingly." Boothe shook his head, not thinking he was quite as sure of this as the Duke was.

"You might be surprised what a young woman will do if the thinks she's in love."

The Duke got up from his desk, indicated that the two men should stay, and summoned his valet to find his secretary. He wanted this done. He wanted out of Arendelle and back to civilization as soon as possible. And that required action immediately.

As they waited for the secretary to dress and come down, the Duke briefed his henchmen on the plan."I will have something for you for tomorrow. Two packages. Discretion will be paramount, you cannot be caught at this."

"Of course, milord. We'll be in and out like shadows. No one'll be the wiser."

* * *

Kristof walked out into the training yard, which had turned out to be the courtyard with a few additional features. The captain had added something she called "a pell," bundles of tightly woven straw roughly in the shape of a person. The pell wielded a wooden practice sword, which was snugly bound onto where an arm would be. The captain had her charges use the practice swords with the pell, but her Midshipmen used real swords when they sparred or did drills. For sparring she made them use weapons without an edge, fewer eyes were lost that way, but the weight was an important part of developing the forearm strength to use a sword effectively. Anna, however, was currently restricted only to the practice sword until her arm grew strong enough that she could reliably control the point of a real sword. Kristof suspected that safety, both Anna's and that of everyone else, might play a part, but the captain had assured her that she would be picking up a real sword soon enough.

Today the captain came alone, and it was just she and Anna out in the courtyard. Fitzwilliam was in her shirtsleeves looking well put together even with the activity and the heat. Anna however, dressed sensibly in a pair of trousers and a shirt, looked like a drowned rat. Sweat had plastered her hair around her face. Her shirt had large patches of sweat on it, and in that sweat streaks of dirt. Kristof found that irresistable.

"Again!" Fitzwilliam shouted out the count in a slow rhythm. "High quartre, parry, riposte. High tierce, beat, lunge." She shook her head at her student and stopped the chant. "Damn it, keep your knees bent. Hand loose, don't have a death grip on the sword, it's not some axe for chopping wood, and your tip must stay even. Even and pointed at your target. Now again."

Anna ignored the order and took the practice sword in her left, shaking out her aching wrist.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"My arm is tired. I can't move it. I can't even feel it. I need a minute before I can do the drill again."

Fitzwilliam quickly closed the distance between them. "Oh, I see. When you're fighting for your life you'll stop and say 'Monsieur, my arm hurts.' I'm sure whoever is bent on killing you will be happy to let you take a moment." The captain poked her in the chest. "Bring your sword up and do it again. This time with your knees bent the entire time."

Anna grumbled and flexed another time before changing the sword back.

"NOW!" Fitzwilliam smacked her on the butt with the flat of her scabbard.

"Ow," Anna yelped, "that hurts!"

"Not as much as a sword in your belly," Fitzwilliam said tersely and she lifted her scabbard again as a warning. Anna quickly complied with her order.

Kristof scowled and considered if he should intervene. He hadn't decided how much he liked this 'learning to use a sword idea' of Anna's. It wasn't his place to say 'yes' or 'no,' but he had feelings about it. It took a lot of her time. It left her with even more bruises than she usually sported. And there was something about Fitzwilliam, a change in attitude when she picked up a sword that he wasn't sure he liked. She moved like a predator. She watched Anna like a wolf watches a lamb. There was something hungry in her eyes that emerged in the heat and the sweat of the training yard.

Fitzwilliam walked quickly behind Anna a little amused when the girl flinched.

"Now," she came up close, there were maybe two inches between her and the princess. "Bend your knees."

She pushed Anna down into a deeper bend, and then squatted behind her forcing her larger form into the same relative position. Her right arm came around Anna's arm and she gently supported her forearm. Then in a quiet tone, an ordinary tone, a tone you might use with a friend in an intimate conversation, she continued, "The best time to practice is when you can't hold up your sword any more. That's when all the bad habits and rote ways of using your arms fall away. You have to really think to move. And if you're thinking instead of just moving, we can rebuild those pathways so that they work for you with a sword instead of against you."

She leaned in even further so that now her body was flush against Anna's. "Loose grip, only the thumb and forefinger tight. Loose, loose … good. Now high quatre, parry, riposte," Fitzwilliam guided the sword into the proper position. "Parry, like this," slowly she shifted the guard of the short sword out just even with the edge of Anna's body keeping the tip still pointed at the imaginary attacker. "Just that much. You only have to guide their blade around your body and keep your point online." She repeated the motion guiding Anna's arm faster, and then faster still.

"Next, high tierce, beat … lunge." Fitzwilliam stopped and brought Anna's arm back to the neutral position and then flicked out a quick beat against her imaginary opponent.

"Don't fight me and don't beat out so far, you only need to move their sword enough to get it off line for a moment longer than yours. You just need the initiative. And your when point has come back online then lunge. Now, the whole thing. High tierce, beat, lunge ..." when Anna lunged the captain used her left hand to pull down on her shoulder.

"Don't stand up … knees bent … whoa." She caught Anna as she started to fall forward. "That lunge wasn't the best, but the rest … that is how it should feel."

"Numb?" Anna asked.

Fitzwilliam smiled a wicked smile. "I guess if you've got enough energy to mouth off, you've got enough energy for three more."

Anna opened her mouth to protest but decided against it after looking at her tutor's expression. Reluctantly she got back into position, knees bent even though it was killing her.

The captain started again with a slow even count. "High quartre, parry, riposte. High tierce, beat, lunge. Again. Better form!" She was moving slowly toward Anna as she counted, keeping her eyes fixed on Anna's eyes. Her pace increased. "High quartre, parry, riposte. High tierce, beat, lunge. One more!" Now she was right at Anna's side, her face inches from Anna's face. "High quartre, parry, riposte. High tierce, beat, lunge." Her expression hardened. "And hold, and hold, and hold ... done. Good."

Anna groaned as she pulled herself back from the lunge. Her arm was shaking, but she felt better than she had all day. She'd done it. She had really done it.

Fitzwilliam glanced up at the balcony window. "Take fifteen minutes, and get some water. Fifteen minutes, no longer. If you're not back in fifteen and working on the pell you'll be running around the castle again."

"Aye, aye," Anna said giving her best salute with a ridiculous grin.

Fitzwilliam's eyes narrowed, "Good thing I like you," she said. And then she turned on her heel and jogged off into the castle interior.

Anna saw Kristof sitting on one of the ground floor window boxes. "Hey, how'd I do?" she said cheerfully as she tucked her practice sword up against the pell.

Kristof scowled. "You can't let her treat you like that."

"What?"

"She's yelling at you. She hit you!" He walked over and stroked her arm possessively.

"Yeah, but not anything serious. She's just getting my attention. Not that I wouldn't mind a simple 'Hey, Anna pay attention.' But that doesn't seem to be her style."

Kristof continued unpersuaded. "And then she's all over you, holding you, and right up against you."

"So you're mad because she's too mean, or too close?"

"It's just not right." He said firmly.

Anna smiled as she realized what the problem was. "Kristof, you're jealous."

"No."

"No? Then what is the problem?" She crossed her arms and waited for a response.

"I just feel …." He couldn't meet her eyes. "Well, you two talk all the time at dinner."

"Because the other two people in the room say like eight words total if we don't."

"And you're joking around with her, and … and you like her."

"Of course I like her, what's not to like." Anna's hands shot up in exclamation. "She's fun, she tells great stories, she likes sharp pointy things, let's me play with them, and isn't always telling me not to hurt myself."

Kristof continued determined that she see the problem."I come back after a couple days away and she was … under you … it was like you're sitting on her lap."

"That was hardly sitting, and trust me it's not comfortable."

"She was touching you!" He finished with his concluding argument.

"Oh, Kristof." Anna shook her head. "She has no interest in me."

"It didn't look like 'no interest' from here."

"You are so cute when you're like this," Anna pinched his cheek which led to a grimace and his quick retreat. "No, I swear …" Anna continued, "her eyes are elsewhere."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh God, you are that blind? And you were raised by 'love experts?'"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Come on."

"Where?"

"Just come on."

Anna dragged Kristof into the castle. She bounded up the circular staircase with him right behind and then up again to the third floor, where she led the way into a storage room that had a small door in it's ceiling. "

"Pull on that."

Kristof pulled. The door swung down and a ladder unfolded; it went up to the roof.

"Up, we go."

"What are you doing Anna?"

"I just want to remind you that I spent my childhood bored and trying to find interesting places to play. So, I know my way around here."

"What? I don't understand. What does that have to do with Captain Fitzwilliam?"

"Now you have to be quiet, no stomping, no falling, really no stomping, and follow me."

He followed her.

They came over the peak of the castle roof to a place where there was a rope firmly attached to a chimney. Anna grabbed onto the rope and followed it carefully to the roof edge with Kristof right behind her. He watched as she went prone on her stomach and then, keeping one hand on the rope, she hooked her feet on a drain pipe and hung her head and shoulders over the edge of the roof much like a bat. He did the same.

"What are we doing?" Kristof whispered once he was hanging beside her.

Anna held one finger up to her lips to remind him to whisper. She indicated the window in front of them, directing his gaze to the room beyond.

Kristof squinted. It took a second to get everything in the right place. The glass was in the window was very good, so he had a clear view of the room, but he had never seen Elsa's study upside down before. He had to get himself oriented, the chairs there, the desk there, the door there … oh ... oh! He realized what he was seeing. Captain Fitzpatrick had her back to him and was holding someone up against the door in what appeared to be a very passionate embrace. There was a flash of movement, and an ice covered arm was pushed up and held firmly against the door, then another one … he realized that the someone was the queen. "Elsa?" he said. "That's Elsa."

"Yep."

"Anna you're spying on your sister … and the captain … making out?"

"Yep."

"Wow." He said, not taking his eyes off the two of them.

"Yeah, I used to come here to see Elsa when I was a kid. I just wanted to see her, and one of the best places was in Papa's study. But once I realized that something had to be going on between her and Fitzwilliam, I figure it was worth a trip back up here, you know just to make sure everything was going smoothly."

"Wow," Kristof repeated as if in a daze. "Don't they have to breathe?"

"Yeah, they're pretty inten... hey, hey … I didn't bring you up here to be all creepy."

"You're worried about me being creepy, Anna? You just dragged me on the roof to watch your sister make out with another woman."

Anna gestured wildly for him to lower his voice."I was just proving my point. You don't have to be jealous. Captain Fitzwilliam is so not here for me. I don't think she can see anyone else but Elsa."

"Umhum," Kristof mumbled absently still staring in the window.

"Time to go." Anna pulled herself back upright and then gave him a tug.

"Yeah, just a second …" Then she punched him when he wouldn't move. "Ow. I'm coming."

They climbed back down the way they came. Anna hurried Kristof along. The captain was sometimes punctual in her reappearance, not often but sometimes.

As Kristof closed the small access door he asked,"So have they … you know? "

"No." Anna answered rolling her eyes. "They've been kissing each other like … like that for about a week now, but that seems to be about as far as it goes."

Kristof decided he didn't want to know how Anna knew that."But why? I mean I'm a little surprised, it seemed pretty hot and heavy in there."

"One of them is too shy, and the other one is too polite."

"Fitzwilliam doesn't strike me as shy."

"No, she's the polite one."

"Do you think they will?"

Anna looked out into the courtyard to make sure they were alone before she answered. It was empty."I hope so. It would probably improve Elsa's mood." She walked over to a water bucket and took a drink from a dipper there. Then she retrieved her sword and continued her train of thought."It would do her good. You know, Fitzwilliam's a sailor, she's been around the world, so I bet she's got all these … techniques."

Leaving Kristof desperately scrubbing at his face trying to unhear her last words, she started practicing her form on the pell. It was remarkably timely as Fitzwilliam threw open the door and walked out, running her fingers through her hair to push it back into place. Kristof gave Anna a peck on her moving cheek and waved to the captain as he left. The captain waved back with a cheerful smile. Kristof noticed that the predatory look was gone. Apparently the wolf had snacked.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've included a shout-out to AFA ... and thank you to Requ for the momentary loan.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first, Disney owns Frozen and its characters. I will be happy to discuss transformative work with anyone though.
> 
> Next the rating of this chapter is M. If I can figure out how to just to this chapter that's how it will stay. (David, don't read this, your mother will kill me. You're not missing anything but fluff and things you don't want to see anyway.) If not then I'll change the rating of the story. However don't get your hopes up. I cannot write explicitly. I am just horrible at it. :( Sorry. But you'll know where we're going by the end, I guarantee that. Thanks for hanging in. Also if someone feels the overwhelming urge to beta read the rest of this (3 chapters at best) let me know. It's not for grammar (although correction never hurts) but to make sure that I'm making sense and I have sufficient transitions and description.

"But it turned out that the gate was in bad shape, rotten wood or something, so when I hit it that hard it broke, and I fell right over the side in to the water. It was a mess. I was a mess. I ruined everything, my hair, my dress, my shoes. I was never so embarrassed. OK, that's not true, I've been more embarrassed, but still at the time ..."

Elsa interrupted her sister's story, "Whose shoes?"

Everyone turned to look at Elsa, who had been sitting quietly listening until now. She simply repeated in a deceptively innocent tone, "Anna, whose shoes?"

"I'm don't know. I found them in my closet."

The light tone disappeared. "Whose shoes?"

"They'd been in my closet so long; it felt like they were mine."

Elsa wasn't letting up that easily. This particular incident was still fresh in her mind, as was the irreparably damaged footwear. Her voice gained an edge."Whose. Shoes."

"Your shoes. OK." Anna said defensively. "But you said I could wear them."

"Not in the harbor. And I think I loaned them to you a full month before that, for one night. A month you had to return them … I had just presumed they were safely back in my closet."

Anna muttered something about presuming, before she said, "But you have so many shoes. You can't even wear them all, and I didn't really have any right then."

"I have so many shoes and you don't because I don't wear mine in puddles, in the mud, in the fjord, and in the pigsty, which by the way you still haven't explained how that happened."

"The pig was getting away ..."

Kristof chuckled, observing wryly, "So you're making up for thirteen years of sisterly bickering as well?"

"No!" both Anna and Elsa shouted at the same time. "It's just that ..." and then their voices split off into different sentences with each proclaiming their righteousness.

"Oh look, we're out," Carolina said loudly, holding up the wine bottle.

Elsa turned in her chair to ask about more wine and then remembered she had dismissed the staff. It was late. They had stayed in the small dining room telling stories after dinner and only now had moved on to the comfortable parlor, but she hadn't wanted to keep the staff up any later. She stood. "I guess, I'll go and get another bottle."

Carolina leaped her to feet. "No, I can't allow you to do that. Stay here. I'll go."

Elsa cocked her head, "And exactly where were you planning on going?"

Carolina could see the flaw in her plan, but that didn't mean she had to admit it. "Down. I imagine. It's a cellar right?"

Elsa nodded, it was indeed a cellar."To spare you wandering forever in an ancient family crypt I will show you where the wine cellar is, but you can accompany me and take care of any wandering bugs … or spiders." Elsa face left no doubt as to her feelings about bugs and spiders.

"Lead on, my queen," Carolina replied with a sweeping bow.

As they disappeared around the corner, Anna and Kristof looked at each other and started giggling.

"Did they plan that?" Kristof choked out.

Anna shook her head."No, I don't think so, but right about now ..." she paused a moment, her hand in the air as she listened. They heard a heavy door shutting with a thud. "They figured out that they were alone."

"In the wine cellar?" Kristof asked.

"No, the thing about bugs and spiders, she wasn't kidding. I'm pretty sure that's the last place Elsa would get romantic … but there are a lot of closets and pantries on the way to the cellar."

"They're like a pair of randy farm boys," Kristof said with an eye roll.

"Young love ..." Anna replied with a wink, and they both broke down laughing again.

"Mumf, marfk," Carolina mumbled through the kiss she found herself pulled into as she was yanked from the kitchen into a dark closet.

"Of course it's dark," Elsa answered after a long moment. "It's the flour pantry."

"And you're in a mood this evening."

"Ummm," Elsa leaned back in, "I spent far too long sitting far too close to you just looking."

"Patience is a ..." Carolina didn't get to finish her proverb before she found herself pushed against the wall in another passionate kiss. They wrestled for dominance with lips and teeth until Carolina fell back with a groan and gave it. This surrender was well worth it.

Finally Elsa pulled away. "You were saying?"

"No idea ..."

Elsa chuckled and played with the neckcloth in front of her, wrapping her long fingers in the knot and slowly pulling Carolina toward her.

Carolina however pre-empted the tug by moving closer and starting to nip her way down Elsa's jawline to her neck. "So, was this your plan all along."

"No," Elsa squirmed and then shivered as she felt teeth drag across her pulse. "If I have a bruise ..."

"Don't make it sound like a challenge, then," Carolina warned replacing her teeth with her tongue. "But you're right," she mumbled into Elsa's neck, "None of us really need any more wine." She nuzzled her way up to her ear, tugged at her ear lobe with her teeth, continuing, "How about we put the kids to bed, and go upstairs for a little grown up time."

"But we'll come back empty handed … they'll know something."

"We'll tell them we couldn't find it," Carolina buried her nose in Elsa's hair and inhaled.

"I couldn't find my own wine cellar?"

"Have you ever actually gone there to get anything?" The voice drifted in between nuzzles.

"Well no, but I know where it is."

Carolina pulled back with a sigh. This was not, in her opinion, a time where logic mattered overly much,"It moved, it's locked, you forgot … something."

"Sure." Elsa smirked, and pushed open the door. A dim light filled the small room. She pulled Carolina with her as she moved into the kitchen.

"Ah, wait … your hair."Carolina looked up at the suspiciously messy tuft where she had nuzzled Elsa's hair out of her braid.

"What did you do to it?" Elsa reached up and tried to smooth it back. "We were in there for ten minutes,"

"Probably more like fifteen, and besides, it's soft, I can't help myself." She brought her hands up to help tuck the errant strands back where they wouldn't be noticed. Their fingers touched for a moment. Carolina pulled Elsa's hand down to her lips and kissed it softly.

Anna yelped in victory and Kristof shook his head when Elsa and Carolina came back from their expedition.

"Yes! Empty handed," she crowed, "You owe me."

"Couldn't find it." "It was locked." They said at the same time.

Kristof shot them a glare. "You were gone forever," he said, wondering why he made bets with Anna. But he had been sure that they wouldn't have dared to come back with nothing after that long an absence.

"Went the long way around," Carolina replied.

"Doesn't matter," Anna continued gleefully. "I won. And now I'm going to walk Kristof home." She yawned dramatically. "It's pretty late."

Her sister had been about to explain that it was late, and that she had to get up in the morning, both of which were in fact true statements, when she heard Anna's announcement. "Yes," she said feebly. "Be careful. See you tomorrow then," she added, a bit quickly. Then she and Carolina watched as Kristof and Anna disappeared through an archway, a moment later they heard wild cackling.

"What in the world?" Elsa asked.

"Good thing we cut her off."

"Yes. Drunk Anna … that's something I don't even want to contemplate" Elsa said raising am eyebrow. She turned her attention to the woman beside her. "So, I think last night we had proposed a game of chess, before we were … distracted."

"I believe I recollect that. And if that is your wish," Carolina moved to take her hand and leaned down giving her a positively sweet kiss. "Please lead on."

The library had become their private place. It worked for a number of reasons. It was a place they were not likely to be disturbed, Elsa seemed convinced that Anna wasn't even exactly sure where it was. It was on the third floor, away from the bedrooms on the second and the public rooms on the first. This also meant it had a tremendous view out its windows, but it was too far up for anyone to see in. It was summer so any drafts from the bare walls and floor were welcome or at least tolerable. And it contained the sofa, the beloved sofa. Carolina had never become so attached to a piece of furniture in her whole life. She was counting on a trip to the sofa later, but right now they were amiably chatting while Carolina lit some lamps and Elsa settled herself near a large marble chess board.

"I think Kristof's warming to me a bit." Carolina observed, trimming the wick to a nice point.

"Was he ever … not warm?" Elsa asked setting up the pieces, the marble clicked nicely as she put them down. She always found Kristof sensibly reserved and good company. They could sit next to each other for hours.

"He didn't seem too friendly at first. He gave off an odd feeling." Carolina found the matches and borrowed the flame of the lamp the servants had lit earlier.

"I can't imagine why."

"Me either, but anyhow tonight I didn't feel that. He was my new best friend … or the boyfriend of the sister of my new best friend." She shut the chimney, looking for a bit of rag to wipe her hands on.

"Is that what I am … your new best friend?" Elsa asked.

"Ummm," Carolina had to think for a moment. "Yes, yes, I suppose you are, as long as you consider kissing your best friend to be acceptable."

"Nothing else?" she asked casually.

Carolina stopped and turned, surprised, "Can I be anything else?" There it was, the unspoken question that had hung over them for the better part of the week. Carolina could ignore it, had ignored it. She realized that for better or worse she was a "live in the moment" sort of person, which given that she didn't expect an extraordinarily long life was an asset. But she also knew that they both had obligations, she to Avalon, Elsa to being queen, which made pursuing anything more than enjoyable conversation and an abundance of passionate kisses unlikely.

Elsa closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them Carolina was sitting across the chess board from her.

"I … I don't know," she said. "My head is a positive muddle. I'm sorry." She reached around the board, around the pieces and took Carolina's hand. "I know I ..."

"No, don't worry about it," Carolina said with a bravado she almost felt, "I knew this going in. You're a queen. Queens don't have relationships with … with ... with me. You have obligations. Alliances to form. An heir ..."

Elsa winced. "No, not an heir."

"What?"

"I would be too afraid ..." she held up her hands and a light dusting of frost drifted off them.

"I see." There was a long silence while Carolina pondered what possibly she could say next.

Elsa made a visible effort to lighten the mood, shaking her shoulders and bringing a smile to her lips. "Anna is my heir," she said lightly, "and she will have children. Sooner rather than later I'm afraid sometimes." Her eyebrows knitted together in exaggerated concern. "Really I should probably talk to her about that."

"And you intend that Anna would be queen?" Carolina mirrored her light tone.

"For as short as time possible," Elsa clarified, "which is why I'm planning on her having a child in the foreseeable future, so it will be grown by the time I'm ready to leave this mortal coil. I love my sister very much, but I do not think I would be doing Arendelle … or Anna … any favors if she spent too long as queen."

"Oh I think Queen Anna would be great fun. Lively. Certainly diplomatic negotiations would be unpredictable."

"Which was exactly my point." The queen laughed and then picked two pawns off the board, one white, one black.

Carolina eyed her with suspicion. She had counted on having white so the game might be a little bit of a challenge. "So how well do you play?"

"Papa taught me, and we played now and then." She offered her two closed hands to Carolina. "Part of 'learning about strategy', he said. Although I still don't see a great overlap between this game and ruling a kingdom. I imagine you play well?"

Carolina picked a hand and sighed when she saw black in it. "You would imagine wrongly. I have played, but always very badly. I'm really not a very strategic person. I throw away my pawns needlessly," she rotated the board so that black was on her side, and took that excuse to bring her hand to Elsa's face, running her thumb across her cheek, "and the lure of capturing a queen is too much for me to resist."

"Indeed," Elsa chuckled at the dreadful pun. "I would have thought someone in your profession would have a natural inclination to strategy." She looked at the board planning her opening.

"Absolutely not." Carolina replied, shaking her head. "Admirals may think in grand stratagems, but I do not have that luxury." She watched absently as Elsa moved a pawn. She was still focused but not seeing the board when finally Elsa touched her hand again.

"Are you alright."

"Yes, I'm sorry I got distracted." She studied the pieces for moment and then moved her knight out. "It is just ...well, there is very little strategy to battle when it is you and your enemy yards, or even feet from each other, matched or nearly matched in arms and men. Just the endless boom of canon, and the screams of the wounded and dying, and all the while you are wondering if they will lose their nerve first or will you suffer such losses that you cannot recover."

Elsa looked up from the board, all thought of chess gone. "That sounds, horrible. More than horrible."

"It is," Carolina agreed solemnly. "Truly and fully horrible. Not at all like the young men and women who join us think it will be. They think of honor and glory in battle. But until the enemy captain surrenders his sword to me there is no honor, there is no gallantry, just killing. And I will fight as hard as I can, use any means necessary, kill as many of them as I can, kill him before he kills me, or worse kills those who depend on me to command them, so that in the end we are the victors, and I bring my crew safely back, at least as many as I can."

Elsa didn't know what to say. The silence fell again until Carolina dropped her head and began to fiddle with imagined lint on her trousers. "I know I told you that the price of the Vigilant was high."

Elsa nodded. Then realizing Carolina couldn't see her, added, "Yes."

"I had two hundred men on my frigate; I lost seventy, three of those were midshipmen and a master's mate. Those were, still are, unacceptable losses. I should have been hung, or flogged and then hung, but instead, because we were victorious, and I brought home one of the most important prizes of the war, I was a hero. I was lauded, enriched, and given the Vigilant as my own." Her eyes stayed down, but her hand moved back to the chess table in a clenched fist. "It is a bit of an irony that my most prized possession is the one I most regret gaining."

Elsa took a breath. "So why do you do this, for Avalon?"

"Yes. I suppose. I have a sworn duty. I took an oath," she finally looked up in to Elsa's eyes. "But I love the sea. I love being out there were no person can gainsay me, where the only person I am is the Captain of the Vigilant. That is the me I love best." She smiled, but almost as soon as the smile appeared it vanished. "But also, I am good. I have made my reckless mistake and unlike many others I have learned from it. I do not treat my crew like pawns to be sacrificed." She gestured to the board. "I have a good record. I am well known for victories, my crew is not wanting for prize money. But I always make sure that the odds are well in my favor. I will not make the same mistake twice. I will not be responsible for needless death."

"You really think it is entirely your responsibility?"

"Of course it is, I'm the captain. It is always my responsibility!" Her voice was sharp and biting, and she was much louder than she intended. Elsa jerked in her seat and looked away.

Carolina took a breath and then reached over, gently bringing Elsa's face back to hers. Then she took her hand. "But, I will tell you a secret that I have never told anyone." Elsa frowned but seemed interested. "The truth is my favorite tactic is to let them get close enough to realize that I'm that crazy Avalonian woman they've heard so much about, and then hope they decide to run." She saw the glimmer of a smile appear on Elsa's lips. "Really, I have found a little reputation goes a long way in saving a lot of trouble."

"And it does seem you have a bit of a reputation."

Carolina felt the tension lift. Thank god, this was not the turn she had intended this conversation to take.

"I'm sorry. This is not what I had planned to be doing with you this evening, discussing serious and morbid things."

"No, no. It's fine. It's good actually. You know, I do have some small responsibility of my own." Elsa gave her a small lopsided smile. "And I'm glad to hear that you don't … you don't enjoy …."

"Killing people. No, Elsa, despite that I have killed quite a few, I have never enjoyed it."

They sat there hands entwined as Elsa brought her other hand to join the first."Is it strange for me to say that after hearing that," she leaned forward, "that you care about these things, makes me want to kiss you all the more?"

"Strange? I don't know." Carolina exhaled and smiled back. "But is very welcome. Very, very welcome." They stared into each others eyes until Elsa broke away, looking about the room.

"But not here."

"Not here?" Carolina had thought any portrait related embarrassment was long over, and this was "their" room.

"No, not here." Elsa sounded more sure this time.

Carolina stood, and offered her hand down to the queen. "I am your Majesty's servant. Where should I escort you?"

"We have another library downstairs, on the second floor. It's smaller, and more private."

Carolina nodded, and Elsa led her back to the main staircase and down one floor. They passed Anna's room, which Elsa noticed was dark and unoccupied. They past another door similar but with purple scrollwork. They turned a corner almost immediately into a door which opened into a foyer. There were three doors off this room, one of which was open.

"Here is the library, well really it's more of a study." Carolina walked in through the open door. It was a smallish room, indeed a study or an office. A large desk sat near a window with the fireplace across the room, oddly enough unlit. There was a table with two comfortable chairs near the fireplace. A plush rug covered the floor, on the desk were stacks of papers, a box of quills and pots of ink. One quill sat out as if it had been used recently. The whole room seemed lived in, neat but not the almost sterile order of the public areas of the castle. Carolina looked behind her and noticed that Elsa had not come into the room but was still standing back in the foyer. Carolina looked from her to the desk and back. Then she walked back out into the small entryway.

"It's nice. Although the chairs aren't … well, I supposed there is the desk." Elsa tittered, shuffling nervously. Carolina gestured with her head. "How about this room?"

Elsa pushed open the door. There was a fire in the grate here. And Carolina could see the outline of a vanity and wardrobe. "It's a dressing room, and in the back a - a bath."

Carolina stepped forward but not to the room. She ran her finger down Elsa's jawline, then to her neck lifting her chin up and looked deep into Elsa's eyes. "And the third door?" she asked her voice dropping to a husky whisper.

Elsa gently disengaged herself and pushed open the last door. It was her bedroom.

Carolina's breath went ragged,"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am of anything," Elsa said, extending her hand. She and Carolina walked in stunned silence through the doorway, which they shut immediately behind them.

There was a long moment once they were inside the room, Elsa wondering what exactly to do next, Carolina wondering what she had done right in her life to deserve this. Carolina moved first taking off her sword, her coat, everything down to her shirt sleeves and trousers. Elsa, seeing this, raised her hand to dissolve her dress, but found it was grabbed up and held immobile.

"Don't," Carolina said, a command, although gently given, not a request. "Not yet."

She sat down on the bed pulling Elsa beside her and kicked off her boots. She turned to Elsa ran her hands across the bodice of her dress, pleased when Elsa buried her head in her side and purred. Carolina asked, indicating the dress, "Can you take this off slowly?"

"I don't know … I haven't tried."

"Well that sounds like a challenge," she wiggled her eyebrows at the woman staring up at her.

Elsa decided that she needed to keep the odds even, and so she began unbuttoning Carolina's shirt, her fingers trembling at each button making it a drawn out process. Carolina shrugged the shirt off when it was undone, and then pulled off the undershirt herself. Elsa swallowed, and then reaching out with tentative slowness put her hands on Carolina's waist. It was firm but amazingly soft. There were a few scars that she could see, most on her arms and shoulders. One ran right above where her fingers sat. Resolving to explore those later, she slowly brought her hands up and over Carolina's shuddering abdomen until she was cupping her breasts. She ran an idle thumb over the suddenly erect nipples. "Sensitive?" she asked teasingly.

"That's a promise you're going to keep," Carolina whispered.

"I imagine," Elsa whispered back as she found herself being guided to recline on the bed.

"Let's get this dress off." Carolina wrapped her hand around Elsa's. Then with exquisite slowness, watching the it's journey like a predator watching it's prey, she drew their joined hands slowly down the front of Elsa's ice dress. Elsa concentrated on removing just the crystals the tip of her index finger touched, it took effort and she found that by the time Carolina had stopped and pulled her hand away she was flushed and breathless. Her dress fell away from her and then disappeared. Carolina exhaled in admiration, taking in the exquisite woman lying out before her.

"Leave the shoes," Carolina rasped.

Elsa smiled back up at her, "Say, please," she responded in a teasing lilt.

Carolina leaned over her and began kissing her, first her neck then her jaw, at last moving her lips to Elsa's ear she whispered, "Please."

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: SWP (Smut without plot). My feeble attempt. Nothing in this chapter moves the story at all, unless you have to know how our intrepid Fitzwilliam got those scratches on her back. Please feel free to skip to Chapter 8 when it arrives, which will be soonish.

The first time was rather conventional. That didn't make it any less memorable, but it was almost quaint. Carolina knew that most women, virtually all women, responded to some basic techniques. She already knew what Elsa liked as far as kissing, and it wasn't too much of a stretch from there. Her teeth, lips and tongue made a slow circuit of all the places that made Elsa groan or gasp. There were long passionate kisses while her fingers caressed a breast, gently rolled and massaged erect nipples. From there she began to move downward, nibbling and licking and sucking all the way.

She spent a good deal of time with Elsa's sensitive breasts with her mouth too. She found that sucking and then dragging her teeth over them led to desperate hands wrapped in her hair. There was no biting, not yet, but it was nice to know where the sensitive spots were. She continued her circuitous pathway down, ribs, cute little belly button, then she ran a wet tongue over Elsa's hip. There was another gasp and then whine as she skipped down to kiss the sensitive back of Elsa's knee. She started an equally slow journey upward, chewing her way up from her knee, tasting Elsa's thigh, getting closer to the heat and her scent. When she looked up to admire her handiwork she saw thoroughly soaked curls, she felt Elsa's rigid abdomen and imagined there were things tightening she couldn't see. She thought Elsa might cum if she breathed hard enough on her. That was a very empowering thought, and she was tempted to try… but she felt desperate hands tangling in her hair again.

"Oh God, please," Elsa said her voice a broken gasp.

There was one teasing stroke of warm wetness, maybe two … long drawn out, never anywhere long enough for Elsa to reach a climax. Then she gave in and began tonging with focus and precision, and she was right it only took a minute, maybe even seconds before Elsa bucked underneath her. Carolina held on pinning her in place, not allowing her to pull away, drawing out the moment as long as possible. At last there was a long keening whine and she felt frost on her back and then hands pounding on her head. Finally she let go.

"Oh ...ugn." Elsa was still shaking when she crawled back up to hold her, shaking and making indecipherable noises. A very thin layer of powdery snow covered the bed. It slowly faded away.

Carolina sent her fingers skittering downward, teasing, but Elsa grabbed them and pulled them back, clutching them with a vise grip. "God … just … just no … can't think."

Chuckling, Carolina pulled her tightly into her chest, stroking her hair, nuzzling her neck, waiting for the aftershocks to quiet.

Finally Elsa looked up at her with eyes that could focus and see. Her face was luminescent, she had the biggest silliest looking smile on. She reached over with her thumb and wiped off Carolina's lips and then her nose.

"You're really wet."

Yeah, I'm really wet? There was a moment there I thought I might drown."

Elsa gave her a playful slap and snuggled in closer. Carolina bent over and pulled her up into a kiss.

"That's really different from … you know."

"I know what?" asked Carolina.

"Doing it … well doing it with yourself."

"So, I was … acceptable?"

"Oh yes." Elsa shuddered again. They lay like that for minutes maybe even ten or fifteen and then Elsa started to push herself up off the bed.

"Where do you think you're going?" Carolina asked.

"Well, I thought I should … I could."

"Unh, unh, unh," Carolina tisked in the negative. "I'm not done with you yet."

"But I can't ..."

"Oh yes, you can … " Carolina shifted and brought out Elsa's left hand from where it was buried between them. "Now you were saying it was different when you did it yourself."

"Yes," she answered warily.

"Show me."

"I can't do that … here, with you." Elsa blushed and looked down.

"Oh, I think you can." Carolina chuckled. "You're going to do this for me. You're going to do this and you're going to tell me how it feels while you do it. You're going to show me what you want, and you're going to tell what you want."

Elsa's blush got even deeper, and she turned away. But Carolina took her hand and moved it down right into place. Elsa's fingers stretched out and she began gently stroking. When she turned her head back she looked straight into Carolina's eyes and hesitantly began to talk … more whisper than anything else. Carolina looked back with the same intensity, only sending her eyes away briefly when she noticed Elsa's right hand had joined her left, the strokes were firmer now, and she used her right hand to fuck herself. That was what Carolina was waiting for.

She pulled Elsa's hands away and quickly, roughly replaced them with hers. She had her left arm curled under Elsa, supporting her and her right hand was thrusting, slow and first then harder and faster, her fingers wet and slippery, sliding and curling with each stroke. She used her thumb to stroke her clit. Her tempo increased, she changed her angle. She could feel spasms starting, the tell-tale clench on her fingers … small, irregular, but there.

"Come on," she said, breathlessly "For me. I want to hear it. I want to hear you scream."

Elsa's hands latched on to her back and grabbed her hard. Her nails raked down Carolina's back. She pulled her closer, trying to pull her fingers deeper. Everything went still for a long minute, the only thing Elsa could hear was a heartbeat, her heartbeat, fast and loud. Then her back arched as if she would bend in two. She came crying out Carolina's name.

That hadn't been the last time for either of them. Elsa found out that by this time Carolina was hot, wet and ready to go and well, turn about was fair play. She wasted little time working on her newly discovered skills, and she was good at them as well. Carolina had to try not to smile when Elsa got all puffed up and proud when she made her come more than once in a row. Finally to get her new prodigy to stop she had to flip her on her back and pin her down.

"Stop it," she hissed, as she held Elsa's arms above her head.

Elsa struggled and then grumbled, "Damn, you're strong. I'm going to have to figure out some ice … some way to do this to you with ice."

Carolina laughed outright at that.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Elsa's fingers drew a lazy pattern on Carolina's shoulder that circled the round scar puckered like a sunburst.

"Musket ball." Carolina muttered, "Lucky for me it went straight through."

Elsa shimmied further over her body to peer at her back.

Carolina rolled forward to give her better access, "You don't believe me?"

"I just ..." whatever it was Elsa meant to say was interrupted by an embarrassed giggle.

"What?"

"Your back."

"Ah," Carolina chuckled knowingly. "Well you see, those are more recent injuries." She pulled Elsa back down and then rolled them both over so she was on top. "I was in bed with this ferocious little minx."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize …."

"If you had realized, I wouldn't have been doing it right."

Elsa wiggled out from under her and then curled up in her arms, her nose pressed against Carolina's neck breathing in the scent of sex ... of her … of them both. She felt safe and warm; warm was an odd feeling, but there it was. She could stay like this forever, or at least the immediate future.

Arching her back with a stretch, smiling as Carolina watched with unabashed interest, Elsa mused, "I guess the negotiations with Avalon will have to continue for a while now that I've discovered their most interesting export." She continued doodling loops and circles with her fingers on Carolina's chest. "This could take years and years to get right. Maybe I can ask them to station a boat here for my protection while we negotiate?" She looked up to see if she could get a rise out of the captain. "A big boat."

For Carolina that was when time stopped; she froze; a cold wave passed over her; the bile rose in her throat, and she felt as if she would empty her stomach on the bed in front of her. A terrible clarity came crashing through the haze of sleepy pleasure. She could see what was at stake, and her own awful role in it. It was if a painting done on glass had come into clear focus just the moment before it was shattered. Her thoughts rolled out one after another. That bastard, had he planned this? Ledsham was too stupid, but William … he knew her … and he was uncannily strategic in his plots; he always took the long view. He was a master at chess, and he would have no compunction about using her as a pawn. She closed her eyes, wishing this knowledge to go away. How could she have been this stupid, this reckless?

Of course she knew why, she was reckless, always had been reckless, and now she added fool to that list. She had presumed any relationship with Elsa would be brief or just nonexistent; it would be impossible for it to be otherwise. She of all people knew that she was not fit company for a third rate baroness let along a queen. So while she hadn't looked forward to the day Vigilant was sent back to Avalon, she had been certain it would come, and soon. She presumed even minutes ago that Elsa might see her once, maybe twice, and then she would come to her senses, resume her responsibilities and would want to see her no longer. So what harm did it do to engage in the fantasy of this evening? Why not, just for a little while, be like this … feel like this … pretend that she could have someone like this. This night had been a gift to her, an unimaginably precious gift that she would hold forever … but, she felt sick as she thought of it … at what price? Her stomach lurched again. She was a damned fool.

"No!" The word came out harsher than she intended. Elsa broke out of their embrace and sat up, facing her.

"What?" She thought perhaps she had misheard, although the exclamation was pretty clear. She certainly didn't understand it though.

"No, you can't do that." Carolina sprang up and began to look for her clothing, rambling quickly. "You have to send us away, me, Ledsham, the Vigilant … all of us. And you have to do it soon."

"But why? Wait … wait, I don't understand." Elsa's brow furrowed, as she tried to take in the shifting tone in the room. She felt off balance as if the bed had suddenly turned on its side, and a cold dread was starting to pool in her belly. She was far too familiar with things suddenly going all wrong. "I know you have other obligations. But, are you in such a hurry to leave?"

Carolina pulled on her undershirt, acting as if she hadn't even heard the question."You just have to send the Vigilant away. Have no further contact with Avalon if you can help it."

"Why?" the queen demanded, dread mixing with anger. She did not like this feeling of not knowing, of being out of control.

Carolina looked for her trousers and her shirt, the rest was in the chair near the door. She pulled her boots out from under the bed.

"Why?"Elsa asked again in the tone that said she would not be denied.

Finally Carolina looked back and answered, "Because it's dangerous for you." She said it as if this statement should be enough. She knew what was at stake here, and Elsa would just have to listen to her, just believe her.

"Dangerous? How? I don't understand."

Carolina turned on her heel and stormed back at Elsa, all vehemence and pointing fingers. "It's just dangerous. Avalon is dangerous. William is dangerous. He gets what he wants and damn the consequences. If we stay here we are a danger to you. I am a danger to you. I cannot make that any clearer. You will send us away now!"

Elsa's back stiffened at the command, and she drew herself up to her full height. Authority now rang in her voice as well. "You will not speak to me that way, I'm the Queen of Arendelle."

"Then act like a queen and not some little girl throwing a temper tantrum because she doesn't like what she's hearing." Carolina was trying hard to keep her voice level, but she could feel the hard edges of the corner she was being backed into at her back.

"What's she's hearing is not making sense," Elsa said carefully, her eyes cold and narrow. "There is something you're not telling me."

There it was. She wanted to know everything, then fine, she would know everything. Maybe then she would listen to her, believe her. Carolina spat back, "How about that William the Vth of Avalon is my god damned father! I know him. He is ..." her posture collapsed, "Oh god, I'm sorry."

"Your father?" Elsa took a step back her face shrouded in disbelief as the meaning of this revelation swirled through her mind.

"Yes." Carolina's voice turned bitter. "My patron, my supporter, my father, the man who gave me his name so that everyone would know how dear I am to him, how I am his. So everyone would know in what regard he holds his queen and her … their legitimate children. And he is a cunning, ruthless, murderous bastard," Carolina twisted her lips in a mockery of a smile. "Well, I'm the bastard; he's just everything else."

Elsa felt a chill run up her spine. "And you were going to tell me this when?"

"I don't know." Carolina truly didn't have an answer. If it were possible she wouldn't have mentioned it now.

"Were you ever going to tell me this?" Elsa demanded.

"I don't know!"

"You thought this was information I didn't deserve, or did you just not trust me with it." Elsa leaned on the word trust in the most hurtful way possible.

"No ... that wasn't ... I can't … this is … this is treason." And you would think less of me was the unstated reason, but Carolina was certainly not going to add that now.

"So why tell me … why tell me now?" Elsa was angry, very angry. The temperature had fallen, but there was no ice, no snow … it was her expression that was frozen. "Was I that good? Stupid but a good enough fuck to let in on your big secret?"

"That's not it!" Carolina yelled back, "I just realized … I had to."

Elsa's voice was all ice, smooth and hard. "That's not an answer and you know it."

Carolina tried again. This was her fault, and she needed to try to make it right. "All he wants from this … this negotiation is you. I am sure of it, now. He intends to get you to Avalon, and I know he doesn't care how. He will use me, or take your sister to force you to come or … he's capable of anything. And he would have no qualms about killing you if he couldn't have you. The man killed his own brothers and their children to take the throne. He is vicious, and selfish, and if he has set his eye on you, he will stop at nothing to get you." She closed her eyes, head down, jaw working in a grinding clench. "The only thing I can think of is for you to send us away. Have no further contact with Avalon. Make him think you're not worth it … stop using your magic, spread rumors that you've lost it …I don't know ... make him lose interest. I am not sure of the rest, and I am sure you have advisers that can help you. But I know what the first thing needs to be," she looked up her eyes pleading, "you have to make us go."

Elsa decided she couldn't concur more. "Fine," she spat. "Then get out. Get the hell out!"

Fitzwilliam started to pull on her shirt.

"Now!"

Snatching up her the rest of her clothing from the chair, Fitzwilliam left the room. Elsa could hear her dressing in the foyer. She waited. She waited until she heard the door to the hall close. She waited for the footsteps to fade out, and she knew she was alone. Then the storm came.

* * *

Fitzwilliam knew how to get out of the castle and back to the harbor without being seen. But this time she stopped once. When she was over the bridge but not yet to where the docks began she sat down on a stair in an alleyway, a dark spot in a dark place. There she held her head in her hands, wiping the stray tear that ran down her cheek. She didn't know why she was crying … she wasn't a crying person, she could count on one hand the times she had felt this way … guilt surely; it must be guilt, guilt and shame. And she deserved this; she deserved the blame for this. After giving herself a few minutes she pulled herself upright and exhaled sharply. She needed to think, possibly to plan, but at least she felt in control of her emotions again.

She pondered her next move. She would have to tell Ledsham to cut his losses when the order came to leave. She hoped it was a forceful message from the queen. She could even just grab him and take the Vigilant back. Leave his soldiers, the Queen's Guard could deal with them easily enough. She was the master of her ship, and her crew would listen to her; they were loyal to her … perhaps an accident would befall the Duke on their way back. That was risky, but it would allow her to control what was revealed about their stay here, about Elsa. Ledsham was not loved at court, and she was still rather in favor, but interfering with the King's desires was at its heart a very unsafe plan.

These plans and variations on the plots involved filled her head for the rest of her walk back to the Vigilant. She walked on to the ship from the gangplank, hoping that the Officer of the Deck was someone who did not feel the need to stand on ceremony. Her head ached with a dull pounding. Her soul felt a much sharper pain. When she got into her quarters she would find a bottle in there somewhere. This would be a good night to forget.

The deck was ill lit, she thought for a moment about rousting someone to take care of the lanterns, when she heard, "Captain Fitzwilliam?"

"Yes," she answered turning.

Immediately her arms were pinned to her sides by a pair of the infantry soldiers.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded as they frog marched her down the ladder to the wardroom. "What the hell is going on. Let go of me," she tried twisting and fighting, but they were stronger. They stripped off her coat and sword, then her hands were forced to her back and she felt the bite of cold iron on her wrists. A strong hand pulled up on her shirt, and she was jerked backwards and into a chair. She looked around and realized there were four of the infantrymen here, four large soldiers glaring down at her. Her hands were immobilized by the manacles behind her.

"Let me go," she demanded again. "You have no right to hold me; I am the captain of this ship."

"Oh Captain," Duke Ledsham wandered out from the short hallway that led to her cabin, a triumphant smirk on his face. He was followed by Lieutenant Hanson looking pale and drawn and a furious red faced Midshipman Wainwright. In his hand he carried a parcel of letters, as if that had some significance, "I have every right to deal with traitors as I see fit."

At those words Wainwright launched herself at him. Hanson grabbed her tightly by the collar and yanked her back before she could strike the Duke. She struggled against the First Lieutenant's hold.

"Get her out of here," Fitzwilliam yelled. "Before she does something stupid."

"Certainly we have enough rope to hang you both," Ledsham said with a grin as Hanson dragged the Midshipman up the ladder. Then he sat in the chair facing the captain. They stared at each other. Fitzwilliam's mouth a grim line of disgust.

Ledsham leaned forward and waved the packet of letters in her face. "Not your most ingenious move, Captain. Providing the queen with Avalon's private conversations about our plans for her."

Fitzwilliam blinked, confused. This was not what she had expected. "I am unsure what you are talking about. I was not even privy to your plans."

"Hmmm. Interesting then. Why were these in your cabin?" He indicated the letters. "A sudden fascination with diplomacy?"

Fitzwilliam could see that they were indeed some sort of correspondence, but she had no idea about what. As she stared at the Duke with his victorious smirk on his face, it came to her that it didn't matter. She hadn't put those letters in her cabin, which meant someone had …which meant Ledsham had already set in motion what ever he had planned, and it was now too late to do anything.

"So, no questions? No protestations of innocence?" The Duke asked. "Or are you just going to confess to collaborating with Arendelle … with your whore?"

Fitzwilliam reared back in the chair and kicked out with both feet catching the Duke in his gut sending him flying backwards. The Duke writhed on the deck, doubled over in pain, groaning as pulled himself up with the chair.

"I will not permit you to speak that way of the queen, your Grace," Fitzwilliam spat.

"It's not ..." the Duke raised himself to a standing position slowly straightening out "… for you ..." he reached over and grabbed his walking stick "... to permit anything." He brought the stick down with a crack on her shoulder.

Fitzwilliam collapsed forward, the force of the blow sending her sprawling out of the chair. She felt a kick in her ribs, and then the walking stick slamming into her back. She roared in pain and frustration, trying to get to her feet, scrambling to reach Ledsham. The Duke continued to rain down blows until finally someone pulled her up to her knees. She saw the last blow coming, but she was pinned in place. She couldn't move, couldn't block, couldn't duck … all she could do was fall back to the ground as blackness claimed her.

* * *

"Ma'am, ma'am." The voice rang out down the hall, a little breathless. "Anna!"

Anna stopped her headlong rush and skidded to a stop. Looking back she saw Gerda puffing along after her.

"Ma'am," she panted. "If I may?"

"I know, I know. I was going to get up earlier." Anna explained. "Actually I was up, I really was. Well, not really up up, which turned out to be the problem, if I had been sitting or standing I wouldn't have fallen back asleep, well not without really falling anyway. But I was awake …."

"Ma'am," Gerda said more forcefully.

"Yes?"

"I wonder if I might ask you to … to look in on the queen."

"Is she mad?" Anna asked hesitantly. "You know, we had a deal. I wasn't going to bother her about not eating dinner when she was busy, and she was going to stop bothering me about breakfast."

"It's not that, ma'am."

"It's just not my best time of the day. Some people are morning doves and some … wait … what?"

"If … if you would just look in on your sister. Please."

Anna studied the housekeeper's face. Gerda had been one of the few staff members that had remained in the castle her entire life. She had been like a mother to her, and for three horrible years the only one she had been able to really talk to. Usually the housekeeper was a bedrock of calm, her face kind and open no matter if she was scolding a princess for running in the house or comforting her after she fell. Now that face was lined in worry, and it brought an odd pang to Anna's stomach.

"Yeah, sure. I'll do that," she cocked her head. "What's wrong, Gerda?"

"Perhaps it's nothing ..." she said in a voice that told Anna it was definitely not nothing.

"OK. Yeah … going now," and she hurried off down the hall to the stairs.

Anna turned the handle and pushed open the door to her sister's bedroom. A gasp escaped her lips as she looked at the frozen tableau in front of her. It was unusual for Elsa to do this anymore. Maybe a nightmare ... or a spider, she thought trying to lift her own spirits with humor, but even when it happened she never left a room like this, not now that she could disperse her ice as easily as she made it.

"Elsa?"

There was no answer. She went into the room, sliding a little as she made her way over to the far side near the large windows. Elsa wasn't in here. Then she checked the bath and the small office in the suite. Still no Elsa. She normally wouldn't worry. Elsa made it her habit to be up well before this and starting her day … but the ice, and Gerda. Anna would find her then. She would find her, and she would see everything was fine. It would turn out to be some bug incident that Elsa had been too rushed this morning to fix. But Anna couldn't even convince herself of that, so she dashed out into the hall.

She made a mental list of where she should check. First the study, then the library, it was upstairs so she would go there next, then …

Anna stopped in her tracks. The temperature had dropped noticeably as she walked down the hall. She looked over to her right.

The door to Elsa's childhood room stared back at her like an old enemy.

About two months after her coronation, otherwise known as the Great Freeze and Thaw of Arendelle, Elsa had asked Anna if she minded her moving into their parent's suite. Anna had had a small pang of sadness at that, but she could also hear the understated plea in her sister's voice. So together they packed up all of the their parent's personal things in the room, tearfully putting the clothing and nick-nacs into crates to be stored away, laughing as they each told the half of the story of their parent's lives that they remembered. Anna's was the half that took place in the great halls, with visitors, even outside in the grounds or gardens. Elsa's was the half that happened in her room, the library or the study where she sometimes took her lessons.

Then Elsa had moved in to the suite, except that moving in had meant a maid shifted her clothing, shoes and a few personal items from one room to the other. Nothing else changed, not the paintings, not the tapestries, not the bed or furniture, and she brought nothing else with her except for the set of dolls that looked like them, nothing else from her old room. Since that time no one, not even Elsa, had been back to that room. Anna had the sense that Elsa would have had the door walled over making the room disappear forever if she could. And who would blame her? That room had been more of a prison to her sister than a bedroom, which also meant it was the last place Anna expected to find her this morning.

She slowly walked to the door and raised her hand to knock. She was hesitant until she decided that no piece of wood should have that much power over a person. Still it was a feeble knock. There was no answer.

She tried the door handle, it turned. The door was not locked, but she couldn't push it open. She tried another knock, louder this time.

Anna heard a small voice answer, "Go away."

That set her off, and she threw her body against the door, the sound of breaking ice echoing with a crash as it slammed open. Her eyes widened. The floor of the room was covered in ice. A harsh wind blew a haze of snowflakes and hail around, hard enough that she winced as they hit her face. The table was ice. The bed was ice. The walls were ice. Icicles hung like swords from the ceiling; they jutted out like spikes from the walls. She had never seen anything like this … well, since her sister froze Arendelle.

"Elsa ... Elsa?" she said pushing her way into the room despite the wind.

She heard her sister's voice distant and irritated, "Anna … what?" Anna walked toward it, slipping on the ice and landing on her back. She got up to her hands and knees and crawled in further. Elsa was sitting on the bed facing out the window. She was only in her night dress, and she hugged her knees up to her body.

"What's the matter?"

Elsa hugged herself more closely, but finally looked back at her sister. Her mouth was set into a hard line. She fumbled for a moment, and then pulled the wind and hail back into herself, and all that was in its place was an eerie silence. "Nothing's the matter." The storm was gone, leaving only the ice glittering dangerously in the room.

"Whoa, whoa. That's a clear violation of the 'I will not shut Anna out' rule." She tried a light tone. "There will be a penalty."

Elsa's head dropped back to her knees, and she mumbled through them. "Anna, stop it. Not everything's a game. Just leave me, and I'll be ... I'll be fine."

"No." Anna reached out and put her hand on Elsa's shoulder. After a moment she began stroking her back. It hurt her to see her sister like this. It hurt even more that she had no idea why.

"No, what?" came the muffled replied, annoyance bubbling up again in the tone. "I'll be fine."

"No, you won't. No, you probably won't come out anytime soon if I leave you in here, and so no, I'm not going anywhere until we talk." Anna continued touching her sister, running her fingers through her hair, and waiting.

Finally Elsa lifted her head, looking at her sister, "Why is it that you can be this patient right now?" she asked, her voice coated in a sad sarcasm.

Anna leaned in, wrapping her arms around her, "I've been learning from an expert." She studied Elsa's face, looking for clues about what could be so upsetting. "So, seriously, what's the matter?"

Elsa went round and round in her head. She really hadn't wanted to talk to anyone about this, her plan had been to sit in here until … well, until the storm was over she thought with an internal exclamation of irony. It just hadn't been going as well … or as quickly ... as she had hoped. But if there was anyone she could talk about this to, it was Anna. If anyone could help her see anything less than total embarrassment and rage in this, Anna could. "Captain Fitzwilliam and I were …" she took another deep breath, "... we were intimate last night."

"Oh? … oh." Anna blinked and frowned. This was not what she expected. It also didn't make any sense to her, but the change in way her sister addressed Fitzwilliam was a clue. Had she rejected Elsa? That seemed very unlikely, and this looked like much more than hurt feelings. "And this is what is upsetting you? Did … did she do something you didn't want?" Anna felt a surge of rage at that thought.

"No. No … that … that part was fine. Well, much more than fine …." Elsa stuttered her way through the statement and then threw her forehead into her hands."Why am I telling you this?"

"Because I'm your sister, and I love you." Anna tilted her head so it rested on Elsa's. The two of them there, just sitting … talking as if it could be a completely normal thing sisters did. It was a completely normal things that sisters did, and Anna hoped that Elsa felt the same way. That this time she would let her be there for her.

"Younger sister."

"Really, I think about this thing, you know, I'm leagues ahead of you."

Elsa looked sharply at her and glared, but the angry edge was gone from her eyes.

Anna shrugged apologetically, "Sorry, so what was the problem?"

Elsa paused and collected her thoughts. She tried to keep her voice level..."We were talking … afterward."

"Captain's not great at pillow talk?"

"Anna, are you going to listen or just interrupt me. Because I really hadn't planned on having this conversation at all."

"OK, OK, no more interruptions. You were talking?"

"Yes, and she told me … she told me." The anger began swirling around again, she felt it in her chest, in her heart. There was a crack as the ice behind Elsa darkened and pushed out sharp spikes. "She's the illegitimate daughter of William V the King of Avalon."

"And?" Anna prompted her for more, as if that wasn't enough.

"There is no 'and.'" Elsa said her voice getting louder with each word. "She told me that. I got angry. I told her to leave. She left. My room is an icy mess, so I thought I'd come in here. This room is used to being an icy mess."

"So you're angry with her because of who her father is?" Anna still didn't seem to understand, and it made Elsa even more frustrated.

"Yes! No. Not just that."

Anna tried to make sense of this as best she could. There had to be something she was missing. "OK. So, is she connected to the problem we're having with Avalon? Could she have prevented the whole alliance proposal/marriage proposal thing? That stupid snarky Duke?"

Elsa looked away and sighed, "No, I don't think so. It didn't sound like that."

"Did she try to pull something over on you? Take advantage of you? Get you to agree with a plan? Kidnap you?"

"No, pretty much the reverse." Elsa answered her voice tensing. She had wanted to be comforted, not interrogated. "She was warning me that they would do anything to bring me back with them. That I needed to be careful. That the Duke was capable of doing more than just annoying me. She wanted me to send them away and refuse any other advances from Avalon."

Anna looked over and her voice went quiet. "That sounds like treason, Elsa …"

"It probably is."

"OK, so you got to help me here," Anna said tentatively. "I have no idea why a woman risking her life for you made you so angry."

Elsa's head snapped back up and rage filled her face again."She lied to me!"

Oh, Anna thought, that made a lot more sense. "She lied? You mean she told you that she wasn't related to the King of Avalon?"

"It was more a lie of omission."

"And you would be an expert on those."

Anna couldn't help it, the statement was out before she even thought. And she regretted it as soon as she said it. Elsa jerked as if she had been slapped, and then went absolutely still. Her hands slowly came up to her face and she held her head, a coating of frost formed on them and the cracked off. Anna waited, expecting more ice or another violent snow storm. But then Elsa's face dissolved into sobs, her shoulders shaking.

"Elsa …" She pulled her sister into her embrace. "I've got you. I've got you, Elsa."

* * *

Fitzwilliam stirred and groaned in the darkness. Her head pounded, her whole body was in pain and stiff. It hurt to move, but then she couldn't move much anyway. She looked around. She tried to remember where she was … bloody hell.

She heard and felt a bucket being pushed toward her, and she managed to find it, placing her head on it's edge, as she threw up the contents of her stomach. It was mostly bile. Then she realized that was because this wasn't the first time she had thrown up recently, it was just the first time she had been conscious to do it.

"Captain?"

Once she was sure the vomiting had stopped, she looked up from her place on the floor. She was in the hold, and some feet from her she could just make out another shape, clearer now that her eyes were adjusting to the darkness.

"Captain?"

"What?," she said, it took several times for her voice to respond to her desire to speak. "What now?" she choked out. What was left for them to do but hang her?

"It's Wainwright, ma'am. I've been waiting for you to come to."

"Bloody hell, Wainwright go back to your station," she croaked, hoping most of the words made sense. "You don't need to be down here."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but you can't give me orders. Lieutenant Hanson's acting Captain, and he knows where I am."

"If Hanson's mollycoddling my Midshipmen, I'll not be pleased," she said thickly. It was getting easier to speak. Her head still pounded and her body still ached, but her mind was clearing.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," came the retort from Wainwright. Fitzwilliam could imagine the eye roll that went with it. "Here, I've got some water here. You need to drink something."

Wainwright put a cup to her lips and held it as she tipped her head back. Fitzwilliam was tempted to spill it in an attempt to try to clean off her shirt in front. She could smell herself, and it wasn't pleasant. But the water was a good idea, and after she drank she felt better. Wainwright also helped her get into a sitting position up against a barrel of what was probably rum. So near and yet so far, she thought, and she almost laughed.

They sat in silence until Fitzwilliam finally said, "Aren't you going to ask?"

"Ask what, Captain?"

"I think you can call me Fitz now, Alice … or Millicent if you want."

Wainwright choked and sputtered. Fitzwilliam wasn't sure if it was from hearing her own first name from the captain or the "Millicent" that threw her.

Fitzwilliam continued, "And ask me if I did it?"

"Don't need to know … Fitz," the young girl seemed to be trying out that name on her tongue. "If you did, you had a reason, a good one."

"There's never a good reason to disobey an order," Fitzwilliam said in a tired voice. "My duty is to Avalon, and if I violated that oath it's treason. You don't get to second guess the Captain, and I don't get to second guess the King."

"Mr. Hanson thinks you were set up."

"Mr. Hanson needs to mind his own neck right now."

"I don't think I'll be telling him that, ma ...Fitz."

They sat quietly until Wainwright spoke up, "You'd do it again, wouldn't you?"

Fitzwilliam almost said, What part? But she knew what Wainwright meant and the young lady didn't need to be exposed to the entirety of what had transacted. "I would."

"My father says that's the mark of something right, when after you've done it … and your suffering for it … that you'd do it again."

"Funnily enough, my father thinks that the mark of something right is that when you've done it, and you've got what you wanted, that other people are suffering mightily," Fitzwilliam said it without any bitterness. It wasn't like she hadn't known that. "But then I think your father's the better man."

"You shouldn't say ..."

"What are they going to do, Alice? Hang me twice?"

"They're taking you back to Avalon, you know." Wainwright said it as if that could possibly make things worse. But really, that didn't seem likely from Fitzwilliam's view.

"Ah, then I'm Ledsham's prize. Well better me ..." her voice drifted off in thought. "You going to stay here in the hold with me the whole way back?" She meant it as a joke, but then she remembered how literal the young Midshipman was.

"No … but I'll be down regularly. Mr. Hanson wants me to bring you food and water, and he wants me to stay out of the Duke's way. I think he's afraid of what I'll do."

"You have a career ahead of you, Alice. No sense ending that on account of me."

"Understood … Fitz."

They both heard the bells chime, albeit muffled so far below deck. Wainwright got to her feet. "Well, I've got first supper and second dog. I'll bring you something down after that. I'm not sure what I can get, but I'll do my best. You need to eat. And I'll bring enough water so you can have some here. And a clean shirt if I can find it."

"Thank you, Alice, but I couldn't put it on. Not chained up like this."

"I'll still bring it." Wainwright stated as she started slowly back to where the ladder to the orlap deck was. She had only taken three steps when she turned. "Was it stupid of me to believe that we'd always be doing the right thing, Captain?"

Fitzwilliam was surprised by the question, so it took her a moment to answer. "No, Midshipman Wainwright," she said with all the confidence she could muster, "If you didn't think that way, I wouldn't have wanted you on my ship."

"Good to know that, ma'am," Wainwright answered. Then her footsteps faded away.


	9. Chapter 9

Anna sat with her sister in the large room downstairs where Elsa met with her advisers and official visitors. It had taken a while for Elsa to reign in her emotions from the morning and even longer for her to decide that she wanted to leave the comforting embrace of her sister, but eventually she had muttered something about 'big girl panties' and had cleared both rooms of ice, bathed and dressed herself for the day, and came down here to work. Now she sat at the large table furiously writing on a piece of parchment, the latest piece of parchment. Elsa had been doing this for a good hour and unsuccessfully, her efforts reflected in the crumpled sheets lying around her chair.

"Here, what do you think?" Elsa handed Anna the document she had just finished.

Anna looked at the five lines and frowned. "That's pretty direct."

Elsa grumbled and reached down to pick up one of the discarded papers. "Not compared to this."

Anna straightened out the parchment on the edge of the table."Get the hell out of my kingdom!" was written in Elsa's neat hand … larger than she normally wrote, and therefore very easy to read.

"I briefly consider 'Get the fuck out' but I thought it was unladylike."

"Mama would be appalled," Anna said with a smile.

"I daresay I've done a couple of things in the last twenty-four hours that would have appalled her," Elsa answered with a sigh.

Anna shook her head at her sister. Elsa could find something to be guilty about if she was alone in a closet. "I wouldn't be so sure. I saw how they looked at each other sometimes after dinner. Then when they thought I was in bed there would be laughing and giggling and their door shutting …."

Elsa clapped her hands over her ears. "Anna, ew! Just ew! Our parents … really, you had to share?"

Then they both laughed and Elsa's anger seem to fade even further. She took the parchment back from Anna and laid it out again on the table.

"Very well, I'll add a sentence or two at the top. Something diplomatic."

Anna watched as Elsa absently licked the end of the quill as she thought. Then she filled it with ink and carefully wrote exactly two lines. She spread sand on the document to encourage it to dry and then straightened up in her chair, setting the page aside.

"So," Anna said cautiously, "Are you going to speak with Captain Fitzwilliam before she leaves?"

Elsa must have been thinking about that question too because she didn't seem surprised. "No."

"Look, Elsa, I'm not going to tell you that you don't have a right to be angry. I'm just saying I think you might not want to part on bad terms. You can't pretend this didn't mean … something. Even if it's just that you're losing a friend."

Elsa sighed, but was firm. "No, Anna, I can't speak with her. She risked enough giving me that information. The less of a line I draw between myself and her … the better it is for her."

"As long as you have thought about it," Anna replied.

I have thought of little else, Elsa wanted to say, but she settled for, "I have."

Elsa shook the sand off the dictate and folded it carefully. She was reaching for the wax and her seal when they heard shouting, lots of shouting. The ruckus was coming from the courtyard just outside the room there were in.

"What now?" Elsa said with an exasperated tone. She pulled the curtains aside from the large french doors. What she saw outside made her immediately push them back. There were a number of armed men in the dress of Avalonian infantry in her courtyard. Two squads or a platoon, and while she was sure her household guard could eventually take care of them, it seemed that the element of surprise had favored them right now. Outside was a tense stalemate, and the shooting could start at any time.

"Anna," she turned and grabbed her sister, "Go up to the library on the third floor and do not come out. Lock the door. I will send Captain Larsson, and he is the only person you are to open that door to."

Anna had seen the invaders over her shoulder, "I'm not leaving you."

"Anna," she said shoving her toward the door, "that was not a request. Go!"

"But what do I if something happens ..." Anna left out 'to you' but Elsa could hear it.

"You're the one who knows how to get up on the damned roof," Elsa said now pulling her out the door and toward the staircase. "Whatever happens you will be fine. If you have to leave the castle then leave the castle. They won't be here long. I won't allow them to be."

Anna looked like she was going to argue. Elsa grabbed her and shook her by the shoulders."It's not for you, Anna. It's for Arendelle, now go!"

Reluctantly Anna ran off in the direction her sister shoved her. Elsa waited until she heard her footsteps fade on the stairs. Then she walked as calmly as she could manage down the long hall toward the main door that led to the courtyard.

So this was what Carolina was talking about, she thought. It hadn't even occurred to her that the Duke would try to make his way to her with force. So, she had underestimated him and what he was prepared to do, although the goal of this foray wasn't at all clear. It seemed unlikely that he planned on taking her, given the number of men he had. But there was really only one way to find out what he wanted and to forestall any bloodshed. She signaled for the large main doors to be opened, and she stepped out into the courtyard.

"What is the meaning of this?" Elsa didn't raise her voice, but she didn't have to. The courtyard had gone silent when she came out the door. She had a handful of men at her back. She had sent Larsson up to her sister, so they looked to her now for their orders.

"Ah, your Majesty. I'm sorry if we disturbed you." Duke Ledsham's voice carried from somewhere. Elsa couldn't see him, but she was pretty certain he was someplace that would be safe if the musket balls started flying. My god, the man was the very essence of detestable.

"What do you want?" she asked, pitching her voice to carry.

"I want what I have been requesting for the last two weeks, your Majesty, an audience with you. It's only your rude behavior that has led me to try more extreme measures."

"And why would I speak with you now, when you show up on my doorstep threatening me?"

"Because, your Majesty, you are at heart a reasonable woman, and if you don't these men will start firing. They are not as many as yours, not once your reinforcements get here, but they are battle tested. Each of them will easily take down a number of your guards. Meanwhile I will return to the Vigilant, and we will begin blowing away the heart of your capital. We may not conquer, but we will inflict a lot of pain."

Her spine stiffened, and she felt frost begin to spread from underneath her feet. "And if I say yes?" she called out.

"Then I … and a few of my men to guarantee my safety, of course … will come in and I will talk to you. The rest will leave. Simple as that."

Elsa held up her hand and indicated that her guards should lower their weapons. "Very well, then come in. We'll talk." She spun on her heel almost expecting to hear the whine of a ball at her back. But that didn't happen. She stormed down the hall and left instructions that the Duke was to be taken to her council chambers, and she waited for him there. He might trip on the ice and break his neck, but she knew her luck wasn't running that way today.

When he came in he didn't bow, not that she expected him to, but rather he went immediately over to a stack of papers on a small desk behind her. There were four imposing infantry men with him, but they stationed themselves at the door and remained there.

"Ah, here it is..." Ledsham pulled out a single sheet from the middle of a stack of papers.

"What are you doing? I thought you wanted to talk," she said.

"We will, but I needed to find this first." He carried what looked like a letter over to the table and pulled out a chair next to hers at the large council table.

"Why? What is that?" she asked looking over. It wasn't anything she had seen before, and she had no idea why it would be amongst her papers.

The Duke looked up and gave her a look that she knew she would remember for the rest of her life. He was positively overjoyed, beaming at her as if she had just given him his favorite thing in the world as a gift. She felt a wave a cold dread pass over her. "The information Captain Fitzwilliam gave you about Avalon's plans for you and your kingdom."

"She didn't give me any ..."

The Duke's smile was unbearably smug as he handed the letter to her. "Oh my dear girl, don't lie. You do it very poorly. She did, and my proof is here."

Elsa opened it. The letter was dated well before the Vigilant had arrived in Arendelle, and it was between Avalon's King William and the Duke discussing, in rather disturbing detail, the process by which she might be replaced as queen and Ledsham installed as regent in her place. It also discussed Anna in a very unflattering light.

She threw it back at him. "I have never seen this before."

The Duke was not at all distressed. If anything his smile grew more predatory and his voice more mocking. "You can deny it all you want, but we know the truth. Another series of correspondence was found in the Captain's cabin, no doubt she intended to share that with you as well. Fortunately for Avalon her treason was discovered."

"What ..." Elsa was shocked and then angered by the statement. "What have you done with her?"

Arrogance rolled off the Duke as he continued in his patronizing tone, "My dear, she's locked up in the hold of the Vigilant waiting to be carted back to Avalon." He reached over and put a hand on her arm, a wholly inappropriately familiar gesture that made her skin crawl. "What happens to her there really depends on you."

"What do you mean depends on me?" She removed his hand with her own and resisted the temptation to give him a severe case of frostbite. He was goading her, pushing her.

"Whether or not you agree to come back with us and join the royal family of Avalon." He pulled the lace handkerchief out of his sleeve and dabbed at his nose, watching her intently for her reaction.

She worked very hard to give him none. She wanted nothing more than to send a bolt right through him, to freeze his head, his heart and whatever else she could manage to hit, but she pushed that desire down, focusing on keeping her voice level and her hands from shaking. "I will do no such thing."

The Duke tucked the lace back into his sleeve with an exaggerated flair."Your Majesty, I am sure you know what the penalty for treason is in Avalon. I imagine it's the same here … or you do not even have such a law, what with so little to defend and so few secrets to keep." He didn't even try to keep the ridicule from his voice. "But in Avalon we do, and offenders are usually hung. However in this case that is … unlikely to happen." He seemed to savor those last words. Then he leaned back in his chair as if he were telling her an amusing story at dinner.

"No, you see my king, King William, really wants you to come back with us. And while I do have a treaty here that you will sign binding Arendelle to Avalon in all the ways that are important, that isn't going to satisfy him. He wants you. So Avalon must be persuasive. What do we have that you want? What might possibly convince you to come with us?"

"You can't possibly mean ..."

"Oh how clever of you." He was really enjoying himself now. "Indeed it is the good captain's health and well being. If you refuse us entirely I can imagine a very lengthy unpleasant process of questioning for Fitzwilliam. For one, the captain isn't going to want to confess to anything damaging to you or your... respectability, such as it is... she's so noble that way. But I am also sure that given enough time and persuasion she will tell us anything we want to hear. The only question will be if we want anything more than her screams."

Elsa swallowed hard, her face going pale, appalled both by what was being said and by how it was being delivered. "That's barbaric."

"Indeed, it is," he shrugged. "But also effective. So, will you sign our treaty and agree to come back with us to Avalon, or do I make my charges against Captain Fitzwilliam public and send her off to her fate?"

"Your King would do that to his own daughter?" She knew by now better than to hope that Ledsham would have the decency to be embarrassed if the answer was yes. But she still had to ask.

"Ah … so you are privy to all the family secrets, are you? I guess you were intimate enough." Ledsham smirked. "And the answer is yes, he would almost assuredly have to." Again he reached over to her, this time giving her hand a paternal pat. "While the King is indeed fond of Fitzwilliam, I think she's the son he always wished he'd had with the Queen," Ledsham's disdain filled his words, "he can't let that fondness jeopardize his throne. And it won't mitigate his anger when I tell him what happened. He doesn't take betrayal well, and that's what he will see and hear. Certainly he can't show himself to be weak, not about something as serious as this. If he did the heir of Avalon and his brothers would realize it was open season on the Crown. They are a charming bunch; I hope you will appreciate them when you get to meet them."

"I have no intention of returning with you."

Ledsham tsked, shaking his head."I wouldn't be so hasty, your Majesty. Think of the security such an alliance with Avalon would bring. No one would invade Arendelle with us as your partner. In fact, if you were in Avalon all reason for anyone to attack Arendelle whatsoever would be gone. You are the only thing of value here, and you would be safely tucked away. You would be safe. Your country would be safe. You wouldn't have to worry."

Her eyes flashing with the anger she fought to keep concealed, Elsa snapped,"You mean no other kingdom will threaten us as you have."

The Duke chuckled, "If you wish to think of it that way. But also consider this enticement. If you go back with the Vigilant then the King will be in a generous mood. You're to wed one of his sons, but he of all people is not overly concerned about the sanctity of the marital bed. You could quite possibly end up not only with Fitzwilliam's life but her company as well … as long as you were both reasonably discreet about it.

The Duke tossed another copy of the treaty on the table. "My terms are: the captain's life for the treaty binding your kingdom to Avalon. Her freedom for you. It's a generous offer. And I don't think the captain's the sort of woman who will do well spending the rest of her life in a dungeon even if she's hale and healthy, do you?"

Elsa stood suddenly, the heavy chair skittering backwards threatening to topple. Then she walked over to the windowed doors, pushed aside the curtains and looked out into her courtyard; she could see just a hint of the city and the harbor out the open gate. She knew enough not to make a decision while this man was in the room with her. He clearly thought her incompetent, and she was beginning to wonder herself, but she would take advantage of that. "I can't … I can't decide this right now. I need time."

The Duke appeared to have anticipated this request. "Until tomorrow then?" He too stood and moved beside her. She thought if he touched her again she was going to do something they would both regret, but he seemed to sense this. "I'm usually a patient man, but I am afraid my patience with you and this uncivilized backwater has run out."

She spun around and spat back at him, "Fine. Tomorrow. You will have your answer tomorrow." She sent a gust of wind to open the door to the council room. "Now, you may leave."

"Of course your Majesty." He bowed, his victorious smile distorting his face. "I will await tomorrow with great eagerness for your reply. I am sure it will be mutually enriching."

When the door had finally shut behind her unwanted guest, she slammed her foot on the ground and let the ice cover the floor. Angry and frustrated, she wanted to scream, throw things, throw a tantrum, but she needed to be able to think. She needed to be the queen.

She began a slow deliberate pace as she struggled with her powers. Dark icicles grew out of the ceiling over her head; she could hear them crackling and groaning; she could feel them, even if she didn't look up. "You have more control," she chastised herself. "Get control."

She walked back to the large table and spotted the letter the Duke had revealed laying on the floor, a white blot of failure staring up at her. She slammed her fist on the table; it froze then shattered, and the frozen shards scattered across the floor. Then with a gesture she picked up all the pieces in a whirling ball of wind and hail and threw them across the room blanketing the throne and the entire far wall in ice and frozen splinters.

"Damn you!" she shouted at the wall, at the throne, at the man who left her too soon, unprepared to deal with this. "I am not ready for this! I am not ready! I am NOT FINE!"

Then her anger and resolve shattered as well, and she sank into a chair. She felt tears glistening in her eyes, but she was too emotionally exhausted after this day to even cry. She just sat there feeling numb, alone and very betrayed.

It was a while before she unfolded herself from the chair, rational thought slowly flowing back into her consciousness. She remembered all the times she sat and listened to her father tell stories, give lectures, all variations on the theme "act for the good of Arendelle." As if it were that easy … as if she even knew what that meant anymore.

Then she looked up and saw her own coronation portrait, the artist's rendition of her holding the orb and scepter. She wasn't sure what demeanor the artist had intended, probably some variation on serene confidence, humility and virtue, but what she saw was fear. That was a very scared young woman looking back at her … and it wasn't even the fear revealing her magic… it was the fear of making a mistake; it was the fear of ruling plain and simple.

She knew that her father had felt the same fear. She had seen it, misunderstood it when she was young to be a fear of her, but it hadn't been. It wasn't a fear of her, but a fear for her. He had made a decision that could have doomed Arendelle or her … or both … and she could well imagine how fearful that had made him.

The safe interpretation of acting for "the good of Arendelle" should have meant that he proclaimed Anna as the heir as soon as the danger of her powers had been known. Sure, she joked about Anna's impatience, but the fact was with the same training and lessons she had Anna would have been her equal if not better at ruling the kingdom. She could have been trundled off somewhere, she thought briefly of the cell in the dungeon where Hans had put her … clearly someone had considered this, or perhaps just disposed of. While she could never see her parents doing such a thing, even thinking such a thing, she knew it had happened in other places, Avalon for one. Two little boys killed so their uncle might rule, and William allegedly had even more blood on his hands than that. Inconvenient royalty were in a unique danger. But all those horrible and unlikely thoughts aside, the fact was Anna would have been a good, normal queen, and she would have been the reclusive, odd, slightly crazy elder sister unfit for the throne. Arendelle was not a place overly concerned with tradition, and no one had really even known her before her coronation; she was sure there wouldn't have been any revolutions on her behalf. She certainly wouldn't have argued.

So why had her father kept things the way they had been? Why had she continued to be the Crown Princess when Anna was a perfectly acceptable choice? In the very crass reality of being royal that was Anna's purpose in life, to be plan B should something happen to Elsa … and surely being a threat to the kingdom was "something." She had pondered this question any number of times and the only answer that made any sense was that while Arendelle would have done fine without her, she would not have done fine without Arendelle. Being next in line for the throne gave her sense of purpose, allowing her to believe she had a constructive role to play, and she was not just some dangerous, unpredictable, uncontrollable force of nature. It was the thing keeping her sane. Her father, as plain wrong as some of his decisions had been, had done this because he loved her enough to take the less sure route. He had chosen her over Arendelle, or at the very least he hadn't chosen Arendelle over her.

So, she would sign the treaty. Well, she would consult with the council, Ledsham could damn well wait for her, but ultimately she was sure they would agree with her, and she would sign the treaty. She wasn't so sure it was good for Arendelle, but it wasn't going to bankrupt or destroy them either. And it might result in some measure of safety, as well as prevent them from being a participant in something unspeakable and soul crushing. However, she couldn't go back with the Vigilant, that would violate her oath as queen to protect and defend her kingdom. That was not something she was at liberty to do. The whole resolution was a compromise, one that might turn out to be a mistake, or it might not … but it was the best option she saw before her … the best of some very limited options.

As punctuation to her mood, one of the icicles hanging from the ceiling dropped to the floor with a loud crack. It narrowly missed her, and she almost laughed. Certainly that would be an irony … the evil Snow Queen impaled on her own ice while whimpering in her council chambers. She picked up the dark icicle, disturbed by how much it looked like a weapon, like a giant dagger, or a decent sized sword. She looked up at the rest of the ceiling where a small thicket of those daggers hung down. She thought of the spikes that always appeared when she was angry … dark dangerous spikes. She looked over at the throne across the room encased in ice and jagged wood, another artifact of her anger.

She stood up and with a thought and a wave of her hand she dispersed all the ice in the room. She now knew what she wanted to do. First she was going to find her sister and discuss this with her. She didn't think Anna would object … it was almost an Anna kind of plan. And she also knew that to exclude her from this decision would be another betrayal. Furthermore Anna had to be prepared. It was imminently possible this idea would go horribly wrong, and then it might fall to Anna to pick up the pieces. Yes, she would speak to her sister first, and then she would need to speak with Larsson.

* * *

"Majesty, we bring the Ambassador." A guard, she pulled his name to mind quickly ... Omdahl, spoke. Last night she had instructed Captain Larsson to assemble a dozen guards who were not only brave and good in a fight, but who were also loyal, preferably to her personally, at least in theory, rather than just to the crown. Omdahl was one of those. They were about the same age, she guessed. She wondered if that was the source of his fondness for her, growing up together in an odd distant way, sort of at the same time … except that one of them had been outside in the city and the other locked safely away in the castle.

"Good." Elsa looked down from the top of the second staircase to the open space below. She was in her ice palace. Here she felt truly at home, not surprisingly in control and powerful. Right now the palace glittered in a beautiful pale blue with some rosy highlights from the morning sun. The floors and walls were smooth with the complex embellishments inset inside the actual ice. But this ice, like all of her ice, would change if she became angry or upset. Right now it seemed that only the immediate area around her showed the effects of her emotional state. The floor beneath her feet was darker and the walls had begun to shift and crack very slightly.

She was in an ice-dress, not her customary one, but one she had fashioned last night after leaving the Vigilant. It was more modest than what she usually wore, higher in the neck and it had a lengthy train. She was depending on it also reflecting her mood today, and so far it had done so, shimmering now between a light purple and a medium red. She guessed that was the color of frayed nerves.

Her platinum hair was now wrapped tightly around her head. A tall white crown sculpted from ice completed the look. "Bring him up here," she ordered. Her long train swirled out behind her as she turned quickly. She had the time it would take the Duke to arrive here to reach inside herself for the right feeling. It wasn't hard. Earlier she and her personal guard had gone to the Vigilant. She'd frozen their canon, their guns, even their swords, easily with a wave, doing that sort of thing was getting easier now. Disarming the ship and crew had made gathering up Captain Fitzwilliam from the hold relatively easy. Looking at her after they had done so was not. She had expected to see the captain in a bad mood, perhaps a little bruised and angry, she had not expected to find her almost unable to walk, badly beaten, covered in her own filth. Elsa merely had to recall the look of humiliation that she had seen on the captain's face to summon up a deep rage for the man climbing the stairs below her.

"Queen Elsa, you are not doing yourself any favors," Duke Ledsham yelled. "I do not appreciate being dragged for hours up a mountain."

But it was Marshmallow who answered with a roar rather than the queen. He was sitting in the open space in the first room, and Ledsham decided that upstairs might indeed be the safer place to be.

"Queen Elsa," The Duke started again as he reached the upper floor. "I tire of these antics, and your behavior will cost you, you and Arendelle."

"How so?" came her reply, her tone venemous. She was no actress, so she had decided not to try to act. But she also decided up here there would be no concealing of her emotions. She intended to allow herself to feel everything that was bottled up inside her as fully as possible.

When the Duke looked over to where the queen's voice had come, he started. Elsa did not as a habit sit on her throne in her castle below in Arendelle, but she was sitting on one now; it was an immense chair of ice with large ornately carved arms, the back a fan of sharp icicles.

"My last offer was generous; my next will be less so," he said his eyes wandering around the room, looking everywhere but her.

Elsa sneered at him, "I have already rewritten our agreement." She snapped her fingers and one of her household guard stepped forward and handed the Ambassador a sheaf of paper.

His eyes quickly scanned the document, and he scoffed, "This is absurd. I'm not agreeing to these terms. This is not a treaty, it's capitulation. I do not know what game you are playing, but you are playing with Captain Fitzwilliam's life."

She willed herself to listen to him, to believe him. She reached inside and pulled up everything, all the memories of rage she had, all the hurts, all the frustration, everything that had led her to this day. The blue ice of the throne room darkened and cracked as she pondered the man in front of her. Her dress color moved through midnight blue to black and ominous jagged teeth protruded from its shoulders. A fan of black ice grew behind her head, giving her face and hair an otherworldly glow. "Unlikely. The captain is sitting right now in my dungeon. I suffer insults to my person no more gladly than your king," she seethed at the man in front of her.

What do you mean?" the Ambassador said in confusion.

"I have already received a rude awakening from her. I do not intend to put myself in that situation again."

"How is she ..." Ledsham sputtered.

"Ambassador," Now it was Elsa's turn to be snide, "If you didn't put those letters there, as you have said, and we both know that I didn't put them there, that leaves only one possible person responsible. The captain had access to my castle and my person. And she has, as you yourself have mentioned a duty to Avalon. I will not allow such a slight to myself go unavenged. I intend to extract full payment."

It was the last line she threw herself into, savoring the words. Again the walls darkened but now needle-like spikes protruded from them all pointing at the unfortunate Ledsham. They continued to grow as she kept fresh in her mind the hatred she had come to feel for this Duke.

Ledsham blinked. This was a turn he had not expected. He had truly thought the queen cared for Fitzwilliam, and perhaps she had, but clearly things had changed.

"When you sign this agreement," She continued, "I will release the captain. And I'll return the Vigilant to you as well."

"The Vigilant?" He was perplexed. What did she mean return the Vigilant?

"You are ignorant this morning, aren't you," Elsa beckoned the Ambassador toward the large crystal double doors that led to her balcony. They opened magically as she approached, and when they were both outside she gestured back to the harbor, which was tiny in the distance. The Ambassador squinted. Elsa scowled, rubbed her hands together, and created a telescope from ice. With that aid the Ambassador could see the large ship perched precariously atop an enormous plateau of a glacial shelf. It was completely frozen, ice constrained the sails and the gun ports. Nothing moved on its frigid barren decks.

"It's about fifty feet up. Not an inconsiderable distance for something that large to fall, but it would be easier if I just crushed it like the fragile toy it is." Elsa gestured with her left and a swirl of icy hail picked up an enormous tree from the mountain side and smashed it into kindling. "Easy and so very satisfying."

The Duke swallowed hard, and then asked. "What do you want?"

"What I want," as Elsa began to speak the ice around them darkened from dark reds and midnight blues on to black. Jagged stalagmites of ice grew from the ceiling, black cracks spread on the floor. "What I want is for you to agree that Avalon will not interfere in Arendelle's affairs. And you, and everyone who came with you, will then return to Avalon." She gestured with her left and a circle of toothed spikes surrounded the Ambassador and began to extend up toward him. "You will report to your king that I am not suitable as a wife or whatever it was you had planned. You will report that Arendelle is not interested in allying with Avalon. And you will warn your king that any further contact without my express invitation will be considered an act of war." By this time the points of the extruded ice surrounded the Ambassador on all sides, having grown to withing inches of his body. He shifted warily in the center.

"If you ignore this warning, if Avalon tries my patience again, I will end her." Her tone was hard, uncompromising, unpitying. "I wonder how many years without spring or summer it would take to starve you out? What will your William do when his entire kingdom is a frozen wasteland? And should you doubt my resolve, or my capability, I would remind you that I froze everything you see between here and Arendelle without even a thought, I built this castle in a night, immobilized your ship in five minutes, and could easily send an army of," she gestured down at Marshmallow, "snow and ice to fight any force you send here. A disposable army, Ambassador," She paused to make sure he understood, stressing every word, "An endless – disposable – army." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the Duke.

The Ambassador hesitantly looked back into her stare, there was something fierce and full of rage in her brilliant blue eyes. He dropped his gaze and took a moment to compose his thoughts.

"I am waiting Ambassador." Elsa raised her voice for the first time during the conversation and punctuated it with an upward gesture. An icicle shot from the floor through the Ambassador's coat just missing his back. It caught on the heavy fabric, and he hung several feet in the air, motionless from shock."Unlike you I am not a patient person." It felt exhilarating to be able to wreak revenge on this odious little man.

"Fine, fine, I'll agree. I agree to your terms." he stammered.

Elsa dissipated the ice shard at his back, dropping him to the floor with a crash. She motioned a guard forward with a pen and waited until he signed the document. Then she dispersed the spikes and extended her hand with a smirk. Ledsham gingerly took it. Elsa thrust her hand forward, sliding it under his sleeve, and grasped him about the arm. The Duke screamed, high pitched, clearly in pain. When Elsa released him, the imprint of her hand on his forearm was visible, branded in his skin by the cold.

"So you can remember," she snarled at him, "Cold hands, cold heart." Then she turned on her heel strode back out to her balcony the doors abruptly closing behind her, leaving him to be escorted out of the palace and down to Arendelle proper.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Elsa was exhausted when they returned to the castle from the North Mountain. It wasn't the long day, she was accustomed to that well enough, but she had not used her powers for this long or with this intensity … well, ever. It was like an ache one might get from over exerting an under used muscle, and she would have said it was a good ache, except for the doubt and unease that lingered in the back of her mind.

"Good night … or morning, your Majesty. With your permission I'll retire until this evening."

Elsa turned and faced Captain Larsson. "Of course, Captain," she answered immediately, but she continued after a moment's thought. "If you would let me know, if any of the men have a … a problem with what happened tonight. It would probably be best if my guard isn't," she hesitated, "afraid of me."

"Afraid of you, your Majesty? Why even would you think that?" Larsson scoffed. "They're just glad you're on their side. There's not one of them that wouldn't have done the same … or worse … if they had the ability to do so." He chuckled darkly, "I myself would have sent the spike someplace less sunny than up that foul idiot's coat … if you know what I mean."

Elsa's face registered her surprise, both eyebrows up, her eyes wide, and a blush creeping up her face. She blinked.

"Pardon my vulgarity, your Majesty. It's late."

"All is forgiven, Captain," she managed. "I will see you … soon."

Her next conversation was, as she had expected, with Kai. She found him coming down the hall from an unused area of the first floor that contained a number of guest rooms. He had probably been up as long as she had. Some how, no matter what the hour or how hard he worked, he never looked tired. Idly Elsa wondered if he had some magic of his own.

"Your Majesty," he gave the perfectly appropriate bow as always. "The captain has been seen by your physician. She has some broken or bruised ribs and the lingering effects of a traumatic head blow, although the physician seems to think that will pass with a few days rest. She has been bathed, given a change of clothing and is now sleeping in a guest room under guard."

It had been Elsa's order that kept Fitzwilliam confined and guarded. Should anyone from the Vigilant attempt to rescue the Captain, or just try to take her back for whatever unfortunate purpose they had in mind, they would find her being treated like a prisoner, perhaps not as harshly as Elsa's words had suggested when they had taken her, but still like a prisoner. They would also find her impossible to reclaim until Elsa allowed them to. Of course she doubted there would be much of a rescue attempt given how shaken the crew of the Vigilant had seemed after she was done with them.

Her mind flashed back to the assault she had executed on the Vigilant.

* * *

It had been very late night or very early in the morning, depending on how you thought of these things, when Elsa and her company of hand picked guards approached the Vigilant at her dock. She was in the lead, which in itself had been quite a fight. But she was far more confident in the ability of her ice powers to keep her from harm than she was of their guard uniforms. She also wanted a clear field of fire in front of her.

The Vigilant rocked gently before her, the creak of rope and the slap of the waves punctuating the night air. She took a breath, and reached out with her powers. She could feel the water beneath the ship. Water was always the easiest, too easy at times; it called to her to freeze it. But she could also feel the heavier touch of metal, the iron cannon and shot, the heavy chains, the fittings and pulleys, and the guns and swords. Those were the things she was looking for first. Holding that weight in at the tips of her fingers as if it was a tangible thing, she opened her eyes. 'They asked for this,' she reminded herself and then she let go of her power.

The temperature plunged. The air was wracked by the sound of groaning and cracking. Her hands shot out, and each of the visible cannon was frozen in turn, its partner on the far side of the ship not one second later. There were shouts of alarm from the ship, first a few voices and then building as more and more of the crew was awakened. Elsa focused her outrage, her anger, and a snowy gale began to blow tightly around her. Larsson and his men held back reluctantly, but she did not want them incapacitated by the storm. Then slowly, at a pace befitting an angry goddess, she walked up the gang plank and onto the ship. As she walked onto the deck she continued dispensing her justice in the form of ice magic. The sails froze; long icicles hung from the lines, jagged shards of ice protruded from the hull and from the structures on the deck. A quick stamp of her foot froze the deck into sheet of thick ice.

Crewmen who were coming up in ones and twos from below in sleep addled confusion found the deck impossibly slick. Some of them had guns, but Elsa instantly froze them making them too cold to hold let alone fire. Officers found their swords frozen into scabbards. Belaying pins could not be moved from where they were fixed solid in their pin rails. She sent another blast through her feet and the wood below decks froze. Men running toward her found their purchase gone and, blown back by the wind, slipped across the deck. Some she simply froze in place, their boots covered in blocks of ice. Then as suddenly as she had conjured it the howling storm as gone. She heard the hobnailed boots of her guards trotting up the gangplank behind her.

She turned to the nearest blue coat she saw. "Bring me your captain," she demanded.

"Here, your Majesty," Hanson's voice trembled slightly either from cold or nerves or both as he called out from his position where he had come up to the main deck. He was pulling on his coat.

"Not you," she spat back at him. "That bitch Fitzwilliam." She punctuated her words by sending a blast of ice to the nearest deck gun. The frozen wall ripped it from its fittings and pushed it through the rail into the water. "Now!"

Hanson must have given an order; she heard the scramble of men hurrying off below deck.

"Your Majesty," Hanson managed to slowly pick his way across the ice. "Your Majesty …"

She saved him from having to finish his thought. "I have grown tired of Avalon's toothless threats. I have humored you long enough." Her voice was all the more threatening with its furious calm. "You have come here to see my power … now see it."

She turned and gestured. The mizzen mast was surrounded by the same gale she had created around herself earlier, carefully controlled to be just larger than the mast and well off the deck. She pushed her hand upward and with a horrifying explosion of sound the mast snapped and slowly rose up from the deck. Everyone on the Vigilant watched stunned as pieces of the quarter deck were ripped up where the mast's fittings had pulled through, although the lower mast, the section below deck, was still in place. Lines strained and snapped. Elsa continued raising the mast, like some enormous cloth wrapped tree, until it was well clear of the ship, and then bringing her fingers together in a fist destroyed it, shredding the sails into rags, snapping the thick wood like twigs. With a toss of her hand the remains of the mast were thrown well clear of the entrance to the harbor.

"My apologies if your trip home takes longer than you intended," she snarled at Hanson.

Before he could answer a large sailor stumbled forward carrying something over his shoulder. He dumped it unceremoniously in front of her. It was Fitzwilliam, manacled and shackled, both held together in a painful looking position by a short length of chain. Fitzwilliam groaned, moving slightly. Her eyes opened, and she blinked as she looked up at Elsa. Then she turned her head away, trying to roll herself on her side so she didn't not have to show her face.

The first thing that struck Elsa was the smell. Clearly it was not enough to beat and confine Carolina, they had to humiliate her as well. It took everything she had not to break down at the sight. It did, however, make rage very easy to generate.

"Take her," she ordered her guard. Two of her men trotted forward and wrestled the captain up, carrying her toward the gangplank and off the ship.

"What are you doing with the Captain?" A young woman's voice rang out from the edge of the crowd that had gathered on deck.

"She's not your captain, girl," Elsa snapped at the voice that could only be Wainwright. "She's my prisoner. One does not betray Elsa of Arendelle without consequences." Elsa swung her head around to Hanson and glared, "I would advise you to remember that."

Then the queen stepped backward toward the gangplank. "Mr. Hanson, you have fifteen minutes to clear this ship. I cannot guarantee anyone's safety after that."

"But ..."

"Fifteen minutes. That is the extent of my patience." The queen wheeled and walked off the ship to wait. As she left the dock and stood on the solid ground of the quay she dissolved all the ice on the ship. Immediately the crew scrambled off, Lieutenant Hanson coming at the tail end of the swarm. She saw him salute the flag of Avalon from his position alone on the gangplank before he walked down to the dock. Elsa waved Larsson over.

"Captain, assign a detail of men to go get the Avalonian ambassador and bring him up to my ice palace on the North Mountain. They needn't be polite. Pull him out of bed if you have to."

"My pleasure, your Majesty!" Larsson returned with a feral grin.

Elsa was sure that Hanson would have been the last one to leave the ship. Confident that none of the crew remained on board, she continued her object lesson that Arendelle was not to be treated lightly, not even by the mighty kingdom of Avalon.

This time when she reached out with her power she embraced the water, at least the water directly under the Vigilant. Pushing upward just as she had done when she built her palace, she pulled a mass of ice up, allowing it to freeze so it cradled the large ship tightly covering it's gun ports. She continued raising it until it was well above sea level; she stopped at what she determined was fifty feet. As the ship was lifted and swallowed by the ice everything else on it was frozen. The decks, the masts, the sails, every bit of wood, metal and rope. When she finished the Vigilant looked like a huge ice sculpture on a pedestal, something that might have been done for a nautically themed ball. She had almost smiled at that.

* * *

"Your Majesty," Kai's voice pulled Elsa out of her reverie. "Given the state she was in, the captain is likely to sleep late into tomorrow. What do you wish us to do with her?"

Elsa wasn't sure how to answer that question. She had intended to allow the captain to return to the Vigilant. That was what she had told the Ambassador. "I'm not sure this is a question for me, Kai."

"Your Majesty," his voice took on a patient tone that she recognized from her childhood. "You cannot send her back to that ship, or to Avalon, not unless you really do want her hanged."

"I thought I had done enough to make it clear she wasn't a traitor to Avalon, but to me."

Kai shook his head. "Someone is going to have to pay for the humiliation Avalon has suffered at your hands. The two obvious choices are Ledsham and Fitzwilliam, perhaps both. Are you willing to risk the captain's life on that chance, on the reasonableness of Avalon's king?"

Elsa thought back to what Carolina had said to her about the king. Kai had a point. But still if she kept her here, she would be depriving her of her command, of her ship, of the very thing she had said she lived for. Did Elsa have that right?

"Do I have that right?" she repeated aloud. "To make this decision about her future?"

"Your Majesty," this time Kai leaned heavily on the word 'Majesty' and that was not lost on Elsa. "Someone is going to have to make this difficult decision. The captain, even if she is wakened, is in no condition to make it herself."

"Someone," she muttered and lifted her head, pulling back her shoulders. "Fine. Fitzwilliam stays, at least until the Vigilant is gone. Double the guard. Do not allow anyone from the Vigilant to claim her. You may remove the guard once the Vigilant has left, which will be at tomorrow's first high tide."

"As you wish, your Majesty."

"Make sure she has sufficient clothing. Several changes and something to put them in. She is free to leave after that God forsaken ship sails. You are free to remind her of the likely consequences of returning to Avalon."

Kai waited to see if the queen had anything else to say. When it became apparent she did not, he asked, "Will you wish to see the captain before she leaves the castle, your Majesty?"

Elsa exhaled, worrying her lower lip. "I am very tired, Kai. I have a few things to finish, and then I am going to bed. I will decide that in the morning. I'm sure I'll be up before she is."

"Very well, your Majesty," Kai gave her the bow that she sometimes suspected was him dismissing her.

As she turned to go up the stairs to her room she heard him speak again and turned.

The butler looked pleased, his usually taciturn face showing a warm smile. "Well done, your Majesty. Well done."

"Thank you, Kai," Elsa replied, although she was not sure exactly which of her actions he was referring to.


	11. Chapter 11

From her place on the parapet, the same place where she had first seen the Vigilant, Elsa watched as a line of dock workers paraded to and from the ship like a string of ants. It was just dawn, and high tide was three hours away. High tide and then they would be gone. Half of her felt like snarling "good riddance," but the other half felt differently about what might happen after the ship was gone. She closed her eyes struggling with the discord between the two feelings.

A warm hand slipped into hers, surprising her, and she started with a gasp.

"Hi," Anna said waving the fingers on her free hand. "I thought you might want some company."

"You're up early," was Elsa's response rather than 'you just scared ten years off my life.'

"Yeah, it happens," Anna answered with a grin. "So?" She gestured with her chin at the Vigilant. "Anything? Any changes? She asked hopefully.

Elsa presumed she was not necessarily discussing the ship. "Not really. I'm not sending her home, not giving her back to Avalon. It's just too dangerous for her. But once they are gone, she is free to leave."

"Free to leave?" Anna raised an eyebrow. "You want her to go?"

"It's not entirely my decision, Anna," the queen replied, more sharply than she intended to.

Anna rubbed her thumb over the knuckles her sister's hand. She could feel the tension in Elsa's grip. She had already seen the resigned look in her eyes. "I checked in on her. She's still asleep. Kai said the physician had checked her over, bandaged her injuries, and recommended rest for the head trauma."

Elsa nodded, she knew most of this already, but still her hand went to her mouth and she let out a shuddering breath when she remembered what Carolina had looked like when they had brought her on deck. It still made her furious. "I should have killed him," she said tightly, her hand clenching into a fist ... "I could have … I almost did. I was so close." She looked first at Anna and then down to the ground between them, "I wanted to."

"And for a pretty good reason, too," Anna answered. She dropped Elsa's hand so that she could pull her into an embrace. Then she ducked her head so their eyes met. "You don't think if the situation had been reversed that Fitzwilliam wouldn't have killed anyone who treated you like that. She so would have. I mean, I've seen her with a blade, vicious … and that was when she was not even angry, so if that happened to you there would be one holey sword-pierced Duke, if you know what I mean."

Elsa just looked back off to the harbor. Anna could tell from the slight quiver to her lips that Elsa was clenching her teeth.

Anna gave up on the eye contact but didn't stop talking. "Look Elsa, I am sure that some people just plain deserve the pointy end of an ice spike in their heart, but if it really bothers you then remember, you didn't do it. You wanted to, but you didn't."

Elsa nodded, "I didn't." She was still deciding how she was supposed to feel about that whole episode. How she was supposed to feel about finally releasing all that rage, let alone where it had come from. All her life she had believed that anger was as much the enemy as fear. No love, no fear, no anger … all intense emotion had been dangerous, off limits to her, and that knowledge had shaped her, practically created who she had become. She felt Anna's arms squeeze her tight. No, she corrected herself, that was not who she had become; it was who she had been. Anna had given her the chance to become someone else, and maybe that person could be angry, or afraid … as well as love.

"Of course you're angry, you have every reason to be angry …" Anna broke through Elsa's reverie, her voice rising. "I think every day, how strong you were … how strong you had to be not to have gone crazy and exploded long ago from being angry. All those years. I would have been certifiable."

Of course that didn't mean that Anna always knew exactly the right thing to say. "Those are not your most comforting words."

"Elsa." Now Anna shook her and gave her that look that told her clearly she had missed the whole point. "You are the hero here, you know that right? Our very own Saint Joan."

The queen had to chuckle. "Not my favorite comparison … burned for being a witch and all."

"OK, OK." Anna hadn't exactly considered that fact, but her mind was working quickly. "Burned by Avalon, right? So how about you've avenged her? Or … and … OK, I know, you're the Boudicca of Arendelle."

Now Elsa laughed, "Boudicca was from ancient Avalon."

"Okay, how about you being our very own goddess Skaði! You are one awesome bad-assed Queen of Winter … in fact, I think we should start calling you, 'Elsa: the bad-assed Queen of Arendelle.' Puts a whole new spin on 'to protect and defend,' which is, by the way, your job. I heard the bishop say it."

Elsa remembered that moment clearly, even if she had been concentrating on holding tight to her emotions and the ice that was leaking from her palms. That her sister remembered surprised and impressed her. "I didn't know you spoke Old Norse?"

"I don't, but I asked the bishop afterward. It sounded so cool and all. And you know it's written in Pa… your crown … the big one …. the one you didn't throw away."

Elsa whacked her sister on the arm. "Hey, I got it back." She said referring to the crown she had worn for her coronation.

"Only after a wrestling match with a snow monster." Anna hip checked her sister and stepped safely out of range of any reprisals. She held up her hand in a fair imitation of the bishop, or how he might have looked if Elsa hadn't surprised him by managing to get the scepter and orb back on the cushion so quickly.

"I now name you: 'Elsa the beautiful, the brave, the bad-assed Queen of Arendelle, also called the Snow Queen, the good at maths, languages and etiquette, she who never slides in her stockings down the hall (I got that one from Gerda), and the surprisingly good dancer considering she waited until the last minute to learn …."

"How can you stand to be near such perfection?" Elsa chuckled.

"Because I'm the person who saved the person who protects Arendelle," Anna puffed up proudly pointing to herself with her thumb. "Anna, Queensaver! How's that for a title?"

"It's perfect," Elsa hugged her sister again, "and true. You do it over and over again."

"Uh huh. And that's what makes us a great team." Anna pulled them into her version of a heroic pose and then gestured with her right hand. "Watch out 'big countries' the sisters of Arendelle are on to you, and we're ready."

Elsa smiled and even stood up a little straighter. Anna was right, she was the protector and defender of Arendelle, although now perhaps a little more literally than the Kings and Queens before her. That was a change though, it was something unique, not something she had been prepared for. She would have to see how to make that mantle fit comfortably.

As for the rest of her life, as long as she had Anna there, she was sure she could face that, too.

* * *

It was early the next morning when Elsa found herself starting down the hall that led to the guest room where Fitzwilliam was staying. Each time she would get about a couple of yards down the hall, and she would remember something urgent she had to do elsewhere. On the third time even she realized what a pathetic ruse that was.

Come on, she internally bucked herself up. What's the worst that can happen? Unbidden a voice inside her replied, just your heart smashed into pieces again. Well, she replied to herself, I won't be any happier if she just leaves, and we don't speak before she does. Yes, the voice replied, but it would be infinitely less painful in the short term.

With a sigh, Elsa told herself to be quiet and walked the rest of the way down the hall. She knocked and waited for the soft, "come in" before she entered the room.

Fitzwilliam was sitting on the end of the guest bed staring out into the nothingness of the room. She was dressed. She had a small bundle on her lap and, of all things, her sword. Elsa wondered where the sword had come from. When Fitzwilliam realized who her visitor was she slowly, somewhat painfully, began to get to her feet.

"No, really. You don't have to stand," Elsa assured her.

Fitzwilliam dropped back on to the bed with some poorly disguised relief.

They looked at each other for quite a while, neither one exactly sure where to begin. Finally Elsa decided that it must be up to her. "I wasn't sure if I would find you here."

"I …" Fitzwilliam closed her eyes and took a deep breath, when she open them she continued with greater confidence, "I was packing. Although I don't know if you would consider it packing if you have so little to pack." She gestured to the sword and the bundle. "And I was thinking."

"You got your sword?" Elsa asked. "How did you manage that."

"Your guards allowed Captain Hanson to see me before Vigilant sailed. He gave his parole and was unarmed. He brought everything from my sea chest, minus uniforms I have no further use for, and I gave him my resignation to take back to the Admiralty in Avalon. Not that I suppose anyone is going to accept it." Fitzwilliam ran her finger down the length of the scabbard. "But cashiered in absentia is better than cashiered in person." She looked back up at Elsa, "I assured him that Vigilant couldn't be in better hands. And that he had better keep on top of my Midshipmen. They need a firm hand not some motherly pampering if they're going to make the grade. "

The silence stretched on for some minutes before Elsa spoke again, "So what will you do now?"

"I'm not completely sure. I have friends." Fitzwilliam laughed, a caustic sarcastic bark, "Well, I have at very least one friend, although friend isn't perhaps the proper word for her. She's running around in Austria or one of the German principalities now. She will take me in. I hope. She will probably find my current circumstance quite amusing. And she will probably allow me to stay as long as I'm 'entertaining' enough." She shrugged in resignation. "Not an ideal solution, but you know any port in a storm."

Elsa's eyes narrowed and her voice went frosty and chill. "So you are running away again?"

Fitzwilliam seemed completely caught off guard by that remark and looked up in surprise. "What do you mean, running away?"

Elsa wrapped her arms tightly about her middle. She turned her head to look at the wall, but her tone remained the same. "I mean, you've been running away from me since about 10 seconds after I suggested we might have something more than one night ..." her tone moved from cold to something more biting. "I'm sure you have better words for it than I do, practice and all."

Now Fitzwilliam reacted, annoyed. She stood up rather faster than she thought she could. "I beg your pardon. You threw me out."

"Oh please," Elsa turned back to Fitzwilliam, confronting her with a glare. "I merely got out of your way. You were already well on your way out the door and out of my life."

Fitzwilliam stared right back. She was not going to be made to feel bad for trying to keep Elsa from harm. "I was doing what I had to do … I am just doing what I have to do."

"Even if I shared your feelings," the queen answered in short clipped tones, "the motivation for that sailed out of my harbor yesterday."

Now what in hell was she upset about, Fitzwilliam thought. It wasn't like she could stay here. "But …" she sputtered confounded by having to explain the obvious, "don't you see …"

"No." Elsa cut her off. "See what? Tell me what I should be seeing."

Fitzwilliam turned away, irked that she had even to talk about this. "I'm … I'm not even the captain of a ship anymore, I'm just some bastard with no place to go …."

Elsa followed her, her voice now raised and angry, "Oh, it sounded like you had someplace to go!"

Fitzwilliam ignored the innuendo, and tried to move further away. "You're a queen. There is no place for me here."

Elsa caught up with her and pulled her around so they were facing. "Did it ever occur to you to ask ME about that?" she spat out furiously.

Again Fitzwilliam was dumbfounded. She sat down heavily and after a moment looked at her boots.

Elsa loomed over Fitzwilliam, her fury unabated. "You are arrogant ... and impossible. You sit there and tell me that the problem with us is that I am not available because of some imaginary arranged marriage that is entirely in your head. I am available until I decide I am not available!"

"In Avalon …" Fitzwilliam started.

That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Elsa's voice crescendoed into a roar. "This is NOT Avalon, and I'll thank you not to mention that name in my presence again."

"But …"

"For God's sake, shut your mouth for once in your life and just listen!"

Carolina closed her mouth in surprise as much as anything else. It had been quite a while since anyone had leave to speak to her like that.

Elsa started to pace. "I do not believe that the people of Arendelle care one wit who is my lover … not even who I would choose to marry, and those that do probably aren't very happy with a witch as their queen anyway. It is true that the council and what gentry class we have would prefer an heir of my body, but they are not the people I serve. I serve all of Arendelle. And they want better roads. They want reliable trading partners. They want good markets for timber and fish. And as long as they have that the people of Arendelle do not care if I am with a man or a woman, a prince or …. or you."

She stopped pacing but continued her rant, jabbing her finger at Fitzwilliam's up turned face."So climb down off your high horse and tell me do you want to stay or do you want to go? Because if it's go, I can arrange anonymous passage for you anywhere. You'll have sufficient resources to live independently not as the lap dog of some … of some God knows what. And you will have refuge here in my kingdom as long as I live … and probably for Anna's life, afterward … as long as I don't tell her why you left."

Fitzwilliam tried to think clearly, but this was so out of her realm of imagining that she had trouble even considering it. "It's complicated …." she started.

"Of course it's complicated." Elsa snorted. "You're complicated … God knows I'm complicated. I have no illusions this will be a walk in the park. But if you think I'm worth it then you'll make the effort … and," the queen got even closer leaning down to put her face right in Carolina's. "Do not stay unless you intend to make a real effort because I am worth at least that." She stopped, pulled back and then sat down on the bed next to Carolina, the fight finally drained from her and murmured again, "I am at least worth that."

They stayed there, sitting side by side on the small bed, each looking away from the other, for many long minutes. Elsa was blinking rapidly, working hard to control her emotions, and Carolina's jaw worked and clenched as she tried to do the same. Their breathing came in small raspy shudders, punctuated by the occasional sniff.

Finally Carolina inched her fingers toward Elsa's palm. Slowly, tentatively, she slid them underneath where Elsa had supported herself by pushing down into the bed. Elsa let go the breath she had been holding and opened her hand to take Carolina's more firmly. Both of their hands shifted into a tight embrace. Then they sat like that for a while, holding hands, still looking away from each other, but the tension began to slowly drain away.

"It will be hard with us both being so stubborn and difficult," Carolina said finally, with some resignation.

"Probably," Elsa agreed.

"It will be difficult for me to introduce myself as .. as your ..." she searched carefully for a word, "…. I mean, as what?"

Elsa let out a derisive huff of air, "You'll figure something out. You're resourceful that way."

Then Carolina broached a more serious subject, one that truly troubled her. "I don't have any work here, anything to do. I will not be a kept … I'm not happy idle."

Elsa cast a glance to the woman next to her, and then shifted so she faced her. "Well to start, my sister needs a good weapons instructor if I'm going to let her handle anything more dangerous than a fondue fork. And you know, Arendelle, as small as it is, really does have a Navy. Quite a feisty one, if not up to...your previous employer's standards. They are always in need of good officers."

Carolina stiffened, imagining the welcome she would receive as the woman who got her commission via the queen's bed chamber.

As if she could read her mind Elsa continued. "I know there will be innuendo about us." The queen frowned, "Is it innuendo if it's true? Anyway, I am sure that you will quickly prove that your abilities with a ship and crew are the reason for your commission not your abilities … elsewhere." She went on thoughtfully. "And really, will it be any different than people assuming that you rose as quickly as you did in Avalon's navy because of your father, rather than because of your amazing ability? Because of your single-minded focus on excellence?"

Carolina seemed to consider that. She too shifted so she was facing toward Elsa. "Are you sure you can manage me being out ... away from you? It's not easy to be with a sailor. There is reason we don't often marry." She was only partly teasing.

"Am I the only one who will have the hard time managing our separation?" Elsa had a sly little grin on her face. Carolina had the grace to blush. "Unlike your former navy, Arendelle doesn't attack anyone, so you probably won't go too far from home, which I consider a very favorable perk. This also means you are far less likely to lose a leg, or worse yet an arm or a hand … another bonus. I could even request that you be assigned shore duty …."

Carolina shot her a glare.

"... or not."

Carolina sat, considering, still wondering if this was a dream or part of some tantalizing hallucination. She even considered pinching herself, but then she realized that nothing could possibly hurt more than her ribs. "So if I stay, what do we do? Where do we start?" Carolina asked. "Besides my promise to make an effort and not to run away." She cocked her head and leaned closer to Elsa.

"I propose we get to know each other better," Elsa said definitively. "Perhaps a little more slowly than the first time. Maybe we can even get in that game of chess?

"Slowly," Carolina pouted. "How slowly?"

Elsa gave her a grin. "That is open to negotiation."

"Allow me to plead my case then," Carolina said moving closer to the queen and putting both arms around her.

"I am a kind and generous sovereign," Elsa replied, "You may make your plea."

Carolina pulled her backward onto the small guest bed. Then with only a slight groan she adjusted herself so she was just above the queen. She leaned down.

Elsa turned her head so that the kiss landed on her cheek. Then she chuckled. "I believe this appeal should be heard privately." With the smallest gesture of her index finger the door closed and frost sealed it shut. "Now where were we?" she continued turning to look back into Carolina's eyes.

"Getting to know each other better," Carolina breathed as she closed the gap between their lips.

* * *

Midshipman Alice Wainwright rolled into her hammock to catch a little sleep before her turn at the first watch. She was too tired to remove her boots, but she neatly hung up her coat on the peg nearest her. She'd be expected to look sharp tomorrow no matter how little sleep she'd had. As she pulled her thin blanket up she felt the package at her head. It was the letter Mr. Hanson, Captain Hanson now she reminded herself, had given her early this morning. She knew who it was from; she recognized the wretched script addressing it to her, and the seal was unmistakable. Equal parts anger and curiosity tussled in her head with plain exhaustion like a calming balm over all of it. In the end curiosity won out, and she reached down into her kit, pulled out a candle and lit it.

Dear Mistress Wainwright,

I have sat for some time now wondering how to write this to you, or even if I should write at all. I am sure you are well aware that I have resigned my commission and will not be returning with the Vigilant. In fact I would suppose that our good friend the Duke not lost any time in conveying his interpretation of events and has called me all manner of things. I will not say that some of them are not true, and I will not ask you to refrain from judgment. A woman of character needs sound judgment, and a friend should not impose upon it.

It had been my hope that I might serve a useful purpose in your future career, and I do believe you have a great one ahead of you in His Majesty's navy. However, now it is clear that any thought of offering you patronage or help with advancement is impossible, and so it is with an empty hand that I must beg a kindness from you.

I would have you do two things. For the first, when you are on leave next if you would visit my mother in Bromley. Her address is below, but even if you should lose it, it would be easy to find her using my name. I will be unable to contact her for some time I am afraid, and so I think it would be a relief for her to hear that I am well and with great hope for my future. In your own interests you should mention to her that we were friends – something that you may not have realized at the time, but now I assure you we were – and that I have high hopes for your career. She still has significant influence in court, and although I will be out of favor with His Majesty, my mother will not be. I believe she can find you a worthy patron much as she found one for me. I hope you will pass on this sentiment to her, even this letter if it is possible.

The next thing I ask is that you continue on your path with the same fervor and dedication you have shown so far. Avalon needs women like you to lead, and lead you shall in less time that you can imagine if you keep your standards high and your morals sound. Take the Lieutenant's exam at the first opportunity. I daresay you would pass now, except that you are short some time at sea. I think you will find life as Lieutenant Wainwright much more fulfilling than life as Midshipman Wainwright. Certainly it will be measurably more comfortable.

Lastly as a sign of my faith, I give you this small token. The captain of a ship must always be able to measure the passage of time accurately or her navigation will suffer. This watch has served me for nearly seventeen years, and it has never varied in its accuracy. I hope it will serve you in the same steadfast manner.

I remain your faithful friend and former companion,

Millicent Carolina Fitzwilliam

Alice tugged the gold chain just visible at the opening of the envelope, and the captain's pocket watch fell out onto her lap. She studied it closely, feeling the smooth gold under her fingers, listening to it's soft persistent tick. When a tear fell on the crystal she wiped it off immediately with her undershirt. Then whispering after a short prayer for the woman who gave it to her, she reached over and tucked the watch in the pocket of her coat. Tomorrow would be another very long day, and she needed to get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks again to grrlgeek72 for her good sense, guidance and help with fixing the awkward things. Any mistakes are all mine, though. And thank you to the readers. I get a warm fuzzy just when the numbers go up ... a review sends me into a delirium of happiness. Really. You have all been wonderful. And there will quite probably be epiloguey sorts of things to this story. I am too fond of them not to.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - First I must concede a great debt to Halm Vendrella author of Frozen: The Snow Queen and The Snow Queen: Love and Duty. His writing is beautiful. Read them both if you want to read something more novel-like and just plain better than this. He set his works in the same early 19th century that I love, and it was reading the words "ship of the line" in Love and Duty that sent me on the path to this. Next of course comes Requ and A Formal Affair because it too is wonderfully written and OMG hot. Elegance and imagery all in one sexually tense beyond all belief package. This is my first effort. All mistakes grammatical and otherwise are solely mine. Critique is welcome, even "You suck" as long as you tell me why.
> 
> Disney owns Frozen and its characters. I will be happy to discuss transformative work with anyone though.


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